Walt's Corner

For those you who want me to shut the fuck up and just give you the damn recipe without the history, here it is. My thoughts and comments follow.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups warm water 105-110˚F
• 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1/2 Tablespoon salt
• 420 grams bread flour plus more to dust

Instructions

How to Make Pizza Dough:

• In a small bowl, stir together water, honey, and salt then sprinkle the top with 1/2 tsp yeast and let sit 5 minutes then stir.
• Add the 420 g flour in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Pour yeast mixture into the center then stir with a firm spatula until the dough comes together. Knead by hand 2 minutes (dough will be sticky). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature 4-5 hours or until doubled in size.
• Transfer dough to a floured surface, turn to coat lightly in flour so it isn’t sticky then divide in half. Fold each piece of dough in half 8 times, gently pulling the sides over the center like closing a book, turning the dough each time and repeating for 8 folds. Form a ball in your hands and transfer each piece of dough to a lightly oiled bowl seam-side-down, cover and refrigerate overnight (18 hours) or up to 1 week. If you want pizza sooner than overnight, no big deal. Just let it hang out on the counter in the bowl for an additional hour while your oven is coming up to temperature.

How to Form a Pizza Crust:

• PREP: Remove the dough 1 hour before using to let it relax and come to room temperature. Before forming the pizza crust, fully preheat your oven so pizza can be baked right away. Place a pizza stone or inverted baking sheet onto the center rack of the oven and preheat to 550˚F (or as high as yours will go). Also, lightly flour a pizza peel and prep toppings.
• When dough is about room temperature and oven is preheated, transfer 1 piece of dough to a floured surface, turning to lightly coat in flour. Pat the center of the dough gently with fingertips. DO NOT pop any bubbles present.
• Lift the dough over both knuckles and roll your knuckles under the center of the dough, working outward as you rotate the dough along your knuckles and leaving a thicker crust at the edge. Toss and spin the dough for a more symmetrical crust. Continue working the dough until it is the size you prefer. It will shrink slightly so make it a little bigger than you think. Place the dough down on a floured pizza peel. Give the pizza peel a little shake to make sure the pizza slides over it and is not sticking.
• Spread on desired pizza sauce and toppings. Here’s a link to my own pizza sauce recipe. Give the pizza another jolt to make sure it slides around on the pizza peel (you don’t want it to stick while transferring it into the oven). Slide pizza onto the preheated pizza stone and bake at 500-550˚F for 8-10 minutes or until crust is golden brown and some of the larger bubbles on the crust are lightly scorched to ensure a crisp crust.

 

My commentary

This is the 2^nd in a series of 3 different pizza crust recipes I have found that I’m sharing. The first recipe was a delicious, thick, chewy, pan pizza crust that is also very good for making breadsticks as well if you reserve a little bit of the dough for that purpose. Pan Pizza is definitely my favorite crust but due to the overnight rising followed by a couple to a few hours proofing, I don’t make it as much as I use this particular recipe. This one still has quite a few hours of rise time, but is certainly doable for me on a weekend. It also freezes and thaws well, allowing me to pull a dough ball from the freezer in the morning prior to heading off to work and store in a loose-covered container sprayed with Pam all day. When I come home from work, it’s ready to stretch and toss. This recipe makes me 4 personal pies, or 2 medium pies. Perfect for just the two of us. I can make a batch, get 2 pies for one night, and freeze 2 more dough balls for a couple pies later. Or just let them proof for up to a week in your fridge.

I can’t remember where I found the foundation for this particular recipe from. I tweaked it a bit to my liking and use. If you think this is your recipe and show me the link and video to where I saw this, I’d be more than happy to provide a credit link here. Just hit me up on the socials or email me.