Best Pizza Dough Recipe

To me, the crust is THE factor in good pizza. Just like a deli sandwich, it has to be on a good, fresh bakery chewy roll. That makes all the difference IMO.

It takes some time to make a pizza crust, but very little actual effort- there's probably less than 5 min actual work involved, including cleaning up.

ChefJune, your dough is not dissimilar to mine. But it's what happens next that makes it pizza. The oven has to be as hot as you can possibly get it. Unfortunately home ovens don't get above 500F whereas 600F or higher is most desirable. That's why I use a wood burning grill that I can close up when I can. Neapolitans judge pizza by the cornice or the outer crust, which if you've done it right will have burnt blisters which have popped open. The toppings are minimal. Adding pineapple would be considered an atrocity in Napoli. Pizza there holds the same status as tagliatelle Bolognese does in Emilia--Romagna.

Most home ovens I've used get to at least 550 degrees- still pretty low, but better. They can sometimes be pushed farther by using the broil setting, but that starts getting a little tricky- depends on the oven.

Thanks, pierino! I'll check it out and give it a try. I was born and raised in Chicago and never heard anything like that about deep dish. They have always made a great thin crust that we loved as kids. Then, in the late 60's had my first deep dish at Uno's and loved it. I enjoy both :) !

I've spent a lot of time in Chicago and believe me if you bring up deep dish to real pizza junkies they will all tell you "That's NOT Chicago pizza!!" Like NYC to which it's a cousin, Chicago style is thin crust and it's often sold by the slice.

I live in Chicago and that couldn't be further from the truth. It's beloved.

Thank you, Nancy! Recall as a child being taught by my Sicilian aunt that rolling pizza crust made it tough. Stretching the dough and giving it a toss was her method and guess that's what I still do. Anyone have input rolling versus stretching?

My dough is very elastic which gives it a nice cornice with burnt blisters on the outside. I begin by rolling it just to get an even , round shape and then finish it by hand.

Thank you, SusanW! Yes, I viewed the other conversations before posting and have searched the Internet using recipes I find. However, I thought maybe there might be a new member or someone who found a great recipe that they could share since the post last year. Always open to hearing new ideas and I appreciate your suggestions!

Yup, Kenji did this back in 2012:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/07/basic-new-york-style-pizza-dough.html

Worth giving a try; pizza dough ingredients are so cheap.

Curiously, Kenji has written about this in 2010 as well.

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza.html

I'd go for the 2012 recipe. No doubt he has refined the recipe over time.

CV, when I'm curious about a method or ingredient, I always toss Serious Eats in the search field somewhere. That site has yet to disappoint. Internet crush.

Susan W,

Absolutely!

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is arguably writing the most well-researched food recipes in American English in our time. As a MIT-trained biologist, he employs scientific methodology far better than anyone else writing for the North American food audience than anyone else.

The only two other sources whom I would consider to be even remotely within his league are Sunset magazine and the New York Times food department.

Actually CV, Lucky Peach is in Kenzi's league and in fact a league above. Fred McGee is a regular contributor and they did score some Beard awards. I can't recall Sunset magazine doing that.

Excuse the typo. Ho sbagliato. Kenji not Kenzi.

Thanks, pierino, I will check out Lucky Peach.

Sunset is well known for their recipe testing methodology, they've been publishing for something like 120+ years. This is a West Coast periodical, not so it may be unfamiliar with many people outside of the western USA, but they are undeniably solid.

One thing for sure about Kenji is that he has no qualms in questioning the status quo and his research often ends up highlighting best practices and methodology rather than some fancy gimmicky ingredient (example: reverse sear for meats).

Even though I never follow any recipe word-for-word, there are almost always one or two concepts in a Food Lab recipe that are great takeaway points.

One thing that the Food Lab analyses do that most other publications do not do (including NY Times and Sunset) is to recap what happens when you use other ingredients/techniques and their results.

99.99% of recipe authors do not divulge their mistakes.

Pierino, do you by chance mean Harold Mcgee? Or is Fred someone we need to find out about?

Harold McGee writes interesting stuff, but he should NOT be considered as any sort of authority.

Someone recently brought up that the second edition of his book states that rice increases 1.6x the water of the dry rice. Worse, the book doesn't even describe exactly what rice this is. It is a sweeping, all-encompassing statement with zero follow up.

I thought that was sketchy so I carefully monitored my last batch of rice (Japanese brown rice). Two cups (310 g) was measured and soaked with water for a total of 900 grams.

I cooked the rice in my electric rice cooker and it was 700 grams after the cooking cycle was done. I left the rice in the cooker overnight and measured it the next morning. Some had evaporated, but it was still 650 grams. That's almost 2.5x the weight of the dry rice.

DO NOT READ MCGEE AS A DEFINITIVE SOURCE.

It is sloppily written and has been since the original edition published in the mid-Eighties. The book should be considered as an inspiration for future research, not as a definitive answer.

Good point about Kenji Lopez-Alt being one of the few who disclose mistakes, errors, bad results in recipe testing.
ATK/Cook's Country/Cook's Magazine does this too, but often in less detail.
And yes also to Sunset magazine for reliability (saw occasionally even while growing up on the east coast).

Kenji used to work for ATK. I agree that both are excellent sources for well-researched recipes. I also appreciate that they explain the "why" and "why not" of things.

That's what I've heard. Maybe they should bottle it and sell it as "Pizza Water". I'd buy it! LOL