Susan: Pizza Dough

Whenever someone tells me they want to try baking bread but have no idea where to begin, I suggest they start with pizza. This is the equivalent of learning to bake biscuits or scones before attempting Danish pastry and éclairs.

The thought of baking your own bread can be a little frightening. It is time consuming, and numerous things can go wrong. But pizza dough is not temperamental or fussy. The actual hands-on work takes less than 10 minutes, and you can let it rise for as little or as long as you like. It is extremely difficult to ruin and will never let you down. Pizza dough disasters are rare.

Life is complicated, but making homemade pizza is not. Basically you mix up some dough, and a couple of hours later you pull a gorgeous, piping hot pizza from the oven.

At least that's what I thought last month — before A Year In Bread. I've never analyzed homemade pizza this much in my life.

There is a fundamental danger in becoming involved in a project with two people who are older and wiser than you. Dealing with them is like playing chess with an expert. The expert is thinking six moves ahead, while you are simply trying to remember which direction the horse is allowed to go. When Kevin and Beth readily agreed to my suggestion that I post my pizza article last, I should have known better.

I wasn't worried about my recipe, since I've been making fantastic homemade pizzas for years. I mainly wanted to go last because I'm always behind with everything, and figured I could use the extra time (case in point — I'm writing this on Wednesday night). But I will admit to having a slight case of stage fright. The enthusiastic response to A Year In Bread has been amazing, and expectations are obviously high. The pressure of going first was just too much. And the second baker's article would have to be at least as good as the. . . Oh no. The third baker was going to have to come up with something really special. No wonder they let me go last. (Stop laughing, you two.)

I panicked, but only a little. Then I saw Kevin's pizza. And this photo of Beth's on our Flickr group. I stared in disbelief. These pizzas looked incredible. They actually made them? My confidence level plummeted, and I tortured myself by looking back and drooling at their photos every few hours for days.

Meanwhile, a cursory glance through a few magazines and cookbooks revealed that not only was my pizza dough recipe remarkably similar to everyone else's, but all of my unique ideas for toppings had already been done. (I didn't dare Google anything.) I was obviously an unoriginal, homemade pizza loser. The slight panic turned into a full-blown attack.

I'll skip the pathetic details. Let's just say that 15 pizzas later, I'm right back where I started. Making homemade pizza is not complicated — and I make fantastic pizza. You can, too. So let's get started.

Susan's Straightforward Pizza Dough Recipe
Makes approximately two 11- to 12-inch pizzas or four 7- to 8-inch pizzas.

This is a simple recipe (don't let all these paragraphs scare you away) that produces a crisp, chewy, and flavorful dough. It takes less than three hours from first step to first bite — which means you can decide at four o'clock on Saturday that you want pizza for dinner and be eating well before seven. That said, it should be noted that my 15 experimental pizzas were not made under exacting scientific conditions in a lab. They were made in real life, which we all know is far from perfect. One time the two-hour rise turned into three. Another time the 10-minute rest period lasted 45 minutes. The good news? Every single pizza still came out tasting (and looking) great.

You can pile on the toppings like I did in the pizza above (it's loaded with a thick layer of my Super Simple Homegrown Tomato Sauce, mushrooms, mozzarella, pecorino romano, and homegrown lamb salami) or simply brush the dough with some flavored olive oil and scatter on a little cheese. The lighter the toppings, the more the crust will rise while baking. If you are really going to load up your pizza with toppings, you might want to make the crust a bit thicker, as the middle of the pizza may get soggy if it's too thin.

Ideally, you want the dough to be between 74 and 78 degrees F (23 to 26 C) while it is rising. If your home is very cold, you should probably let the dough rise longer if you have the time. You can also start with warmer water. During the summer, when our non-air-conditioned house is in the upper 80s (with humidity to match), I still let the dough rise for two hours, but I use cold water. You can also store your flour in the freezer to help cool down the dough (and keep your flour fresher).

I use bread flour when I make pizza, as it creates a crisper crust (but you can make this dough with all-purpose flour). I'm also a big proponent of organically produced (and locally grown) ingredients. I use Heartland Mill organic flours, which I buy in 50-pound bags that I special order at the local natural foods store. Organic flour costs more than conventional, but not much. And compared to the price of a purchased pizza (or any bread for that matter), using top quality ingredients when you're baking is a bargain. Look for organic flours in the bulk section of independently owned natural foods stores, or at places like Whole Foods and Wild Oats.

Do you have a sourdough starter living in your fridge? Tossing some into your dough will make this pizza even more wonderful. You'll find instructions below.

Note: For very small amounts, my beloved digital kitchen scale isn't accurate enough; in fact, few kitchen scales are accurate at such detail. You're better off measuring things like yeast and salt in teaspoons or mililiters.

bread flour 3 c 700 ml 15 oz 424 g (plus a little more added while kneading the dough)
instant yeast 1 tsp 5 ml 1/8 oz 3 g
salt 2 tsp 10 ml 3/8 oz 10 g
lukewarm water (about 90F, 32C) 1 1/3 c 315 ml 11 1/2 oz 325 g

Place the bread flour in a large bowl. Stir in the yeast and salt. Add the water and stir until a soft, but not sticky, dough forms.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead it for 3 minutes, sprinkling with a little flour each time it sticks to your hands or the counter. The dough should be quite soft. (Just knead it by hand. It's easier and faster than getting out your big electric mixer. Yes, Kevin, this means even you.)

Liberally sprinkle the mixing bowl with flour, place the dough back in it, and sprinkle the top of the dough with flour. Cover with a damp tea towel or cloth napkin and set in a warm place for two hours.

After about an hour, place a baking stone on the lowest rack in the oven, and set the temperature at 500 degrees. (You never want to put a cold baking stone into a hot oven as it may crack.)

Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and divide it into two or four pieces. (I use a pastry scraper, sometimes called a dough scraper or bench scraper, which is a handly little gizmo that is also great for cleaning off my butcher block countertop). Flatten each piece of dough into a disk and let them rest for 10 to 15 minutes.

There are many ways to shape pizza dough; experiment to find what works for you. Smaller pizzas are easier to shape than larger ones. I simply hold the disk of dough in front of me by one edge and use gravity and my fingers to gently stretch it into a larger circle. I then lower it onto a wooden pizza peel that has been dusted with plenty of cornmeal, and finish stretching it into the shape and thickness I want, pinching together any tears. You can also set it on a rimless baking sheet (or directly onto your pizza pan if you aren't using a baking stone).

Beth and Kevin recommend creating (and baking) your pizzas on a sheet of parchment. I'd never thought to do this, but it makes sense, especially with heavily topped pizzas — and in warmer weather when the dough wants to stick to the peel.

Don't worry if your pizzas are not perfect circles. The more oddly shaped and rustic looking the better, in my opinion. If you like a thick edge on your pizza, go around the outside of the circle and fold the dough over, pressing it down and sealing it with your fingers.

Top your pizza however you like, gently shake the peel to make sure the pizza is not stuck to it, and then carefully side the pizza onto the hot baking stone. This is done in one quick move, and it can take some practice, but all mistakes are edible. My baking stone is about 14 inches by 15 inches and will hold one 12-inch pizza or two 8-inch pizzas.

Bake until the crust is golden and the cheese has started to brown, about 8 to 15 minutes. (If I know I'll be freezing and reheating a pizza later, I undercook it by a couple of minutes.) Assemble the next pizza when the first one is nearly done. Unlike Kevin's and Beth's recipes, the finished, uncooked pizzas do not rise at all but go straight into the oven.

Use your pizza peel to remove the pizza from the oven, or just slide it straight onto a pizza pan. I use an aluminum blade peel for removing pizzas and breads from the oven. The thin edge easily picks them up, and the long handle is really nice.

If a pizza is really loaded with cheese and toppings, I let it rest two or three minutes before cutting into it. If I'm making several pizzas so there will be leftovers for the freezer, I let them cool on stacked wire racks. (These inexpensive, ingenious things are indispensible — especially during the holiday baking season). Nothing slices pizza like a good pizza wheel, but I've found that small, lightly topped pizzas can be easily cut into appetizer-size pieces with a pair of scissors (I always keep at least two pairs of decent but cheap scissors from the dollar store in my kitchen).

I'll tackle toppings in the next few days, including what just might be a thoroughly unique idea (yep, I even had the guts to Google it). I'll also write about my experience with the whole wheat version of this dough that I made the other day using 100% white whole wheat flour.

Susan's Sourdough Starter Pizza Dough Recipe
Makes approximately two 12-inch pizzas or four 8-inch pizzas

I've found that adding some sourdough starter to my pizza dough improves the flavor and texture. This is also a great way to use up starter if you need to refresh your container of it but don't want to bake bread. Sourdough starters are easy to make. The initial process takes a few days, but the actual hands-on-work is minimal. Recipes for sourdough starters abound in cookbooks and online. I made my 5-year-old starter using the recipe in Bread Alone by Daniel Leader (my favorite bread book). The easiest thing to do, though, is to get some from somebody else. Ask around; you might be surprised by who has one living in their fridge. And for those of you interested in sourdough breads, we'll definitely be baking some here in the coming months.

You can make my Straightforward Pizza Dough recipe (but reducing the amount of water to 1 cup 240 ml 8 oz 224 g) and simply toss 1 cup 240 ml 8 oz 224 g of sourdough starter straight from the fridge into the mix. But it's best if you add a little flour and water to your cup of starter and let it sit awhile:

sourdough starter 1 cup 240 ml 8 oz 224 g
water 1/4 cup 60 ml 2 oz 56 g
bread flour 1/4 cup 60 ml 1 1/4 oz / 32 g

Combine starter, water, and bread flour in a small bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 10 hours (or less if that's all the time you have). Proceed with my Straightforward Pizza Dough recipe, but reduce the amount of water to 1 cup 240 ml 8 oz 224 g.

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Beth: Pizza crust 2

Just a quick note to talk about the 'wetness' of my crust. I've talked with a few folks about their experience and have come to a couple of conclusions.

First, I underestimated you all and I apologize for that. I had this really wet dough and thought I'd adjust it a bit for sane people. So I reduced the water from 1 3/4 cups to 1 1/2, tweaked the rest a bit and published it.

What a fool I am.

You all clearly are not sane! Anyone who doubts that can go read the comment thread on my first pizza post, down towards the end where the subject turns to pickles on pizza and sandwiches. Grilled pineapple sandwiches. That was just the beginning.

Also, I know my dough is wetter than what people describe, even with the decreased amount of water. I made several batches and it was pretty darned wet. Then I was talking to one of our breadies and it dawned on me.
I live in a fog valley at the edge of a rain forest.

Seriously, we get 120 inches of rain a year here in evenTinierTown. That's ten feet. Ten feet!

Why would this matter? Well, flour is absorbent and my air is wet. I'm guessing that this means my flour, thus my dough, is just wetter than most people's, even given the same measurements.

So for those of you who live in a drier climate - meaning everyone except Ariel the mermaid - feel free to add a bit of extra water (1/4 cup | 2 ounces | 56 grams) to get that fog valley effect. You may want to add a smidge of extra salt or swap olive oil instead of some of the additional water.

Then again, you may want pickles on your pizza...can't help you with that.

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Beth: Pizza Dough

Anyone who has been reading my writing for long probably knows that, while I think recipes have their place, I tend towards a somewhat improvisational approach to much of my cooking, including bread. After three decades, I possess a certain confidence when it comes to judging dough by feel. While this makes it simple for me to adjust, or even create, recipes on the fly, it means I am starting from a disadvantage here since I haven't written a lot of recipes down.

When I realized this had to change, I started by writing up what I knew of my pizza dough off the top of my head:

"Measure" 3/4 cup of water into bowl, pour about ~1/2 tsp yeast in my palm to measure it, toss that into water, stir. Add a couple of scoops of flour (~1 1/2 cups) and mix. Add more flour a little at a time until it feels right.Let it rest for a few minutes. Drizzle in some olive oil and sprinkle on some salt. Then knead it for a couple of minutes adding enough flour to make a very soft dough. Walk away again for a few minutes, come back and knead a few more minutes. Fridge. Bake.

Not very useful, is it?

My next thought was to reverse engineer some directions for what I normally do by feel. I made a few batches of crust, weighing as I went along and came up with something that resembled a pizza crust. Then I read Kevin's recipe and started wondering about what I'd come up with.

Dough: rest and motion

How would you like a simple technique that gives you better bread with less work?

Here it is: Step away from the dough.

Not forever mind you, just for a bit. After mixing the dough, but before kneading it, put your feet up and have a cup of tea. Come back in half an hour. (I know it has been long enough when my arms feel rested enough to knead the dough.)

This resting period, called an autolyse (aut-oh-lees), gives the flour time to fully hydrate. During this time, glutenin and gliadin - the two proteins in flour that combine to form gluten molecules—bond. Kneading time is reduced substantially because the flour is fully hydrated before you start, and gluten bonding has already begun. Kneading flour also causes oxidation, resulting in bleaching, along with loss of beta-carotene and a bit of flavor, so this improves the flavor of your bread as well.

Salt, which inhibits hydration and gluten development is often left out until after an autolyse, as is any old dough. These ingredients are incorporated while kneading the dough after the autolyse.

Less work for better bread—this is truly a transformative addition to any bread baker's bag of tricks. Some might call it magical.

See, my dough is wet. Not just a little wet, really wet.

To grab an example, Kevin's pizza crust uses ~10 oz of liquid to ~18 oz of flour, whereas I use 13 oz of liquid to roughly the same amount of flour. Like I said, it's wet.

Don't let that scare you away, though. While this dough is a bit sloppy to work with and requires a bit of faith the first time you bake it, it's not as slack as the infamous no-knead bread everyone—maybe even you—is baking. Because this dough is so wet, it is more extensible (stretchy) and tolerant (resistant to breaking down) than a lot of other recipes. Better yet, and a critical payoff to this approach, is that it is incredibly tolerant of delay, which you can plan to fit your schedule.

This dough also employs cold fermentation, which is when a bit of magic happens. During the first fermentation of any bread dough, enzymes are broken out of the flour, releasing sugars and flavor. Normally, with bread rising at room temperature or warmer, these sugars are gobbled up by the yeast so you only get a hint of those flavors in the resulting bread.

Not so with this technique. Cold dough means the yeast is sleeping (shhhhh) and can't eat a darned thing! All those lovely sugars that give bread its flavor and beautiful caramelized crust. are yours to enjoy when the bread is baked. Keeping the dough cold also makes it a bit easier to work with, as I wrote about while experimenting with the very wet no-knead bread. (and it even rises slowly, as you can see from this picture of dough that was refrigerated for about 36 hours)

I usually make this dough the night before I want to bake it. It takes about 10-15 minutes (spread out over an hour or two) after which the dough is refrigerated until shortly before baking. The dough needs at least half a dozen hours to ferment after mixing, and can tolerate up to 3 days before baking. Unused dough freezes well too, (see my notes on freezing at the end of this article)

Finishing the pizza takes an hour or so from when you hit the front door after work. This is mostly determined by the time it takes to heat your pizza stone. If you freeze your crust as I describe below, you can even defrost a frozen crust in that same hour. That makes this a great crust for people who are juggling work, kids, blogging, and a social life.

kitchenMage's Overnight Pizza Crust
ice water 1 1/2 c | 355 ml | 12 oz | 340 g
bread flour 4 c | 0.95 l | 18 oz | 500 g
instant yeast 1 tsp | 11 ml | 1/8 oz | 3+ g
olive oil 2 tablespoons | 30 ml | 1 oz | 28 g
salt 1 tsp | 5 ml | 1/4 oz | 8 g

(These directions are for mixing by wand, err, I mean hand. Parenthetical directions are for those of you who are using a stand mixer.)

Mixing the dough

Important: Water temperature matters—the colder, the better. About 15 minutes before starting, combine 1 1/2 cups of water and add a handful of ice cubes. By the time you are ready for it, there will be very cold ice water waiting. Remember to remove any remaining ice before measuring. If you have room in the freezer, you can put the measured flour in it to chill for that same 15 minutes.

In mixing bowl, stir flour and yeast together just to distribute yeast. Add ice water and mix to combine into wet dough, about 1 minute. (mixer: use paddle attachment on low for 30-60 seconds) It will look like sort of like thick, lumpy pancake batter. Cover and stick back in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Remove from refrigerator, drizzle oil on one corner of dough, drop salt on top of the oil, and stir to combine. Turn dough out on well-floured counter and knead for a couple of minutes. (You can add more flour if you need, or want a substantially thicker crust—I do at times—but this is better with less so give it a shot.) Place dough in clean bowl, cover and return to refrigerator for at least 5-6 hours, preferably overnight. (The dough can stay refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

Baking the pizza

When you get home from work, turn on the oven as high as it goes to get the stone really hot. Make sure the stone is in the oven (or is that just me who forgets?) It takes about an hour to thoroughly heat the stone. Fortunately, this is about the same amount of time it takes to finish preparing the crust, toppings and assembling the pizza—even allowing for interruptions from the small people. You can even toss a salad together.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and turn out on floured counter. Divide dough in half (or thirds for smaller pizzas) and refrigerate the portion you will not be using.

With well-floured hands, shape each portion of dough into a flat disc as large as possible without tearing the dough. When the dough starts to shrink back immediately after stretching, let it rest on counter for five minutes before continuing with shaping it.

With a bit of tweaking, this is a fairly versatile crust. If you like cracker-thin pizza, use less dough and stretch it thinner. (Amusingly enough, this is one of the few doughs I make that I can get a good windowpane from.) For thicker, breadier pizza, use a little more dough and stretch it less. (If you like your crust even thicker, go ahead an use more flour, starting with an extra 1/4 cup.)

When the crust is about the right size, place it on a parchment sheet, cover and let rise until you are ready to top it. If you turned on the oven when you took the dough out of the refrigerator, this should be another 30-45 minutes. It will not rise substantially, but it should warm to room temp and poof just a bit in spots.

In honor of theKid, my toppings for this pizza are Canadian bacon and pineapple. She usually adds black olives but I was out. Oh well. I'd say a 12" inch pizza takes 6 ounces of Canadian bacon, 2/3 of a can of pineapple, and a handful of olives. (feed the rest of the pineapple and olives to the kids who are helping you make it)

My standard marinara, which I make in my largest stockpot using cans of crushed tomatoes and herbs from the garden, goes on first. (Sorry there's no recipe for this, but Kevin's tomato sauce looks like it would work just fine if you need one.) Next, I put on the pineapple and olives so they will be underneath the meat and cheese. Half the cheese is next. If I have parmesan, I might grate some over the pizza at this point. Otherwise, I am a mozzarella purist. Following the first part of the cheese is the meat. By leaving the meat partially exposed amongst the cheese, you promote browning on the edges, which is both pretty and flavorful. Finish off with more mozzarella.

(Kevin and I are going to have a throwdown one day about the relative unholiness of each other's pizza toppings. He has been known to snark about pineapple, while I simply can't fathom cheddar cheese on pizza!)

Carefully slide pizza (still on parchment) onto the hot stone. Bake at 500-550 degrees (hotter if your oven does it) for 3-4 minutes then check to see if the pizza needs rotating for even baking. Continue baking until cheese is melted and bottom of crust is brown and of desired crispiness, usually another 4-5 minutes, depending on how carried away you got with the toppings.

Freezing dough

This dough freezes nicely, although I don't know what is up with forming them into little balls first. I shape dough into 5 inch disks so they thaw quickly, leaving you with just a bit of stretching before your crust is ready to top and bake.

When I am in a hurry to thaw a crust, I take advantage of the preheating oven to kick-start my dough by placing a wooden rack over the burner where the heat vents, and putting the peel with the crust on it on top. Once the peel is warmed a bit (about 10-15 minutes), you can move it to a counter to finish it's mini-rise while the oven finishes heating.

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(my apologies for the wonky image formatting, i don't usually use Blogger and Kevin has this spiffy custom template and I am confused! with any luck, Kevin will come along and fix it before I wake up...and this will all have been a dream...)

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Kevin: Pizza Dough

Settle down folks, settle down. I've never seen so many eager pizza bakers in my life — and my first job was at a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor.

This is real world baking so let's get straight to my screw-up. I planned on making my pizza Tuesday evening, but first I got distracted tweaking this blog's template for the Wednesday launch, and, when I finally got around to making the dough my house was cooler than it should have been (probably around 65F).

In general, this is fine, the dough rises more slowly than it would if the temperature were 72 - 75F, but the slower fermentation (rise) simply imparts greater flavor to the dough. In fact, we'll get into deliberately "retarding" the dough in future recipes (Beth is particularly fond of retarded dough). However, I'd planned on having pizza for supper that night.

Again, no problem. Place the dough in the oven and turn on the oven light. The oven light is typically a 40 watt bulb and generates enough heat in the enclosed oven to promote a fairly quick rise — at least in most ovens, but not in mine, apparently. I've only been here a year and hadn't had a reason until Tuesday to speed up fermentation. Another option is to put a 40 watt bulb in a standard socket attached to an electrical cord and plug into the oven — but I couldn't find mine (not having needed it since moving in here).

At 7:00 pm the first rise wasn't complete and the dough needed another rise before making the pizza. I ate leftovers for supper, and at 8:30 when the dough had finally doubled in size, I punched it down, briefly kneaded it again (to distribute the gluten and eliminate large bubbles), and stuck it in the refrigerator.

Yesterday afternoon at 1:00 I pulled the dough out of the refrigerator and left it sitting on the counter. The dough had, as I expected, risen slightly in the fridge —

Using a Pizza Stone

A pizza stone serves as a heat bank. It's slow to warm up, holds a lot of heat, and is slow to cool down. It's the business of storing a lot of heat that makes a stone so great for pizza and hand-formed loaves of bread. The bottom of the pizza (or bread) gets a huge blast of initial heat and yet, unlike a pan, the stone isn't cooled significantly by the much cooler dough so the heat keeps on cooking. However, you should give the stone at least an hour to heat up fully before baking on it.

A stone is one of the best investments a baker can make — and far cheaper than a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

before the yeast slowed down in the cold — but not much. Three hours later (at 4:00) the dough and bowl were at room temperature (about 70F, yesterday) and the dough was again rising. By 6:00 it had again doubled in size and was ready to make pizza with.

So, lessons? Making yeast bread of any sort requires patience. Bread is a living, breathing, breeding thing and although you can speed it up (with heat) and slow it down (with cold) it takes time for it to react to the new environment. If you want bread ready at a specific time then you need to plan and control all the factors — this is what I failed to do. You also need to know your options. In this case I didn't know my oven light wouldn't have much effect. I need to find that socket with a plug and know where it is the next time this situation occurs. Knowing what to do is half the battle, but the other half is being able to do it.

I did get my pizza made. The dough has a nicely sweet lilt that accentuates the other ingredients and is wonderfully chewy, but with a nice crack in the base. I ate too much.

Pizza Dough
Adapted from a recipe by Mitch Mandell of Fabulous Foods.

bread flour 3 1/2 c | 0.8 l | 18 oz | 500 g
warm water (between 95 and 115 F/35 and 46C) 1 c | 240 ml | 8.5 oz | 240 g
instant yeast 2 1/4 tsp (1 US pkg) | 11 ml | 1/4 oz | 8 g
honey 2 tbsp | 30 ml | 1 1/4 oz | 36 g
olive oil 1/4 c | 60 ml | 1 1/2 oz | 48 g
salt 1/2 tsp | 8 ml | 1/8 oz | 4 g

Combine the honey, warm water, and oil, stirring to mix. The water should be about 95 to 115° F. It should feel very warm, but not uncomfortably hot.

Put the 3 cups of flour and yeast in the bowl and, using the paddle attachment, mix on low for about 20 seconds. Add the salt and mix on low for another 20 seconds. Note: salt is poisonous to yeast, so you want the yeast well-distributed before adding the salt.

With the motor running on low, pour in the liquids. Continue mixing until a shaggy dough begins to form. Clean off paddle and switch to dough hook. Continue mixing on low until the dough comes together.

Increase speed to medium and knead for eight minutes. The dough should completely clear the sides and bottom within 2 minutes if it is too sticky, add additional flour 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing in thoroughly before determining if more flour is needed. If the dough seems too dry, spritz with water from a spray bottle a couple of times, mixing in thoroughly before determining if more water is needed. continue kneading for 6 minutes. You'll find the dough wraps itself around the hook, so every 2 minutes, stop the machine, scrape the dough off the hook, and then continue kneading.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it a few more times by hand to be sure it's tight and elastic. Form the dough into a tight ball.

Wash and dry your mixing bowl then mist it with oil. Place the dough, seam-side down, in the bowl and lightly mist top of dough with baking spray. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise (ferment) in a warm, draft-free spot until doubled in size — 45 minutes to an hour.

Punch the dough down and transfer to a lightly floured board. Knead for about half a minute, then reshape into a ball. Respray bowl lightly, return dough to bowl, spray, recover, and allow to rise again until doubled in bulk — an hour to an hour and a half.

Heat the oven to 450F (230C).

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two equal portions. Set 1 aside and cover with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out. Shape the other portion into a round by hand.

Place the rolling pin in the center of the round and push outward. Rotate the dough 1/4 turn and repeat. Continue until dough is about 12 inches across. Alternatively, you can stretch the dough by hand, which I do. The dough is quite elastic and will want to shrink, so don't rush it. Pause every now and then while shaping (whether by hand or with a rolling pen) to allow the dough to relax.

Coat with sauce, cheese, and toppings. Then, ideally, let the pizzas stand, covered with plastic wrap, for about 30 minutes before baking. This delay highlights the bready character of the dough. Before baking, use a knife to poke holes in any noticable bubbles.

Check back tomorrow for my recipes for sauce and cheese as well as some additional tips.

Updated at 11:12am EST.

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