Best Pizza Crust Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making good pizza dough? ›

There are many tricks to achieving a tasty, homemade pizza dough that rises into a beautiful pizza crust, such as making sure your ingredients are at right temperature, using half bread flour for a stronger dough and half all-purpose flour for a nice rise, substituting honey for sugar to help caramelize the crust and ...

Higher heat = crunchier and tastier crust. Most home ovens only reach 240-250°C, though some have a specific 'pizza' setting. For the best results, preheat your oven and pizza stone or pan on the lower-middle shelf for at least half an hour before cooking your pizzas.

Bread Flour: With a higher percentage of protein compared to all-purpose flour, this is the flour I'd recommend starting with for a great crust. Bread flour is widely available, and you'll get fantastic results. “00” Pizza Flour - A lot of people swear by a pizza dough made with a percentage of “00” flour.

Be careful not to handle your dough for too long- around 5 minutes of kneading should do it. Any longer and you will risk overworking your dough, leaving it crumbly and tough.

The best flour for making Neapolitan Pizza Dough is 00 Pizza Flour. This type of pizza dough is thin and crispy with a slightly chewy texture. 00 Pizza Flour is an Italian-milled, finely ground wheat flour. It is perfect for Neapolitan Pizza Dough because it produces a light and airy crust with a slightly chewy centre.

Palm down, slide your hands under dough and lifting carefully place on to a hot pizza stone. Bake at 500°F for 4 minutes. Remove from oven and top with your favorite toppings (don't go too crazy with the toppings, a little goes a long way). Return to oven for 6-8 minutes.

FYI – A hot pizza stone is key to producing a well-browned, crisp bottom crust. So here are the three things to do to get the stone hot enough: place stone in the cold oven, set the temperature to 500 degrees, and let it preheat for one full hour. (I start the hour once it has preheated).

The more time you allow for slow fermentation, the more flavorful the crust will be. Once you're confident of your slow fermentation technique, experiment with brushing, stuffing and dusting your pies, establishing your own signature recipe for a unique homemade pizza.

The first and most important ingredient in pizza dough is flour. Flour is the foundation of the dough and provides the structure and texture that makes pizza crust so great. When choosing flour for pizza dough, it's important to use high-protein flour.

Cornmeal and olive oil make all the difference

Inspired by the pizza crust often found in delivery pizzas, the publication points to cornmeal as the key to a quality texture and suggests basting the dough with an oil-based spread to enhance the color and flavor.

How long should you let pizza dough rise? ›

If you're planning to make pizza today, then give the dough a rise. Clean out the mixing bowl, coat it with a little oil, and transfer the dough back inside. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let the dough rise until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

If you're baking the pizza in the oven, whether on a pizza stone or not, I always pre-bake the dough for 4-5 minutes before adding toppings, to make sure the pizza dough cooks crisp on the outside and soft and airy in the middle. Once you add the Pizza Sauce and toppings, return it to the oven to finish baking.

Use Tipo 0 or Tipo 00 flour. Tipo is a grading of flour on the Italian flour scale. And these flours have just the right amount of protein content - around 12.5% for pizza baking.

Pizza dough loves warmth, so if you can find a way to add some extra heat, your dough will rise faster. One way to do this is to preheat your oven to the lowest setting (usually around 200 degrees Fahrenheit) and then turn it off. Place your pizza dough in the warm oven for 10-15 minutes until it begins to rise.

It helps the dough stretch and maintain its hydration. It also gives it an added flavor. So, while oil is an essential ingredient for a delicious pizza, it does not affect the finished product's taste. Instead, it makes it easier to cook.

Once the water is boiled, move the cup of water aside and put the bowl of dough in the microwave. Shut the door and turn off the microwave. The dough should double in size in 30-45 minutes. This is by far the best way to make your pizza dough rise faster.