Amazing Homemade Pizza Dough

Intro: Amazing Homemade Pizza Dough

Pizza! Everyone loves a good pizza, well at least almost everyone. :) In this instructable I will show you how to make an amazing homemade pizza dough. This dough is incredible, it tastes just like what you will get at the restaurants! A friend of mine has been making pizza for over 20 years and he showed me this homemade recipe. It is my new go-to recipe for pizza dough. Homemade pizza doesn't have to be hard, join with me as I show you how to make an amazing homemade pizza! Let's get baking!

If you have any questions or comments, put them down below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Follow the easy steps below, or watch the video tutorial, or do both!

STEP 1: Ingredients

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of all purpose flour (can use bread flour)
• 1 cup of semolina flour (Usually found on same aisle as all purpose flour or online)

**You can leave out the Semolina Flour, if you do just replace it with another cup of all purpose flour or bread flour, it just won't taste quite like mine, but it will still be good

• 2 cups of water
• 2 tsp of salt
• 2 Tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 1/2 tsp of active dry yeast (or 1 packet instant yeast)
• 1 1/2 tsp of sugar
• Cornmeal (couple pinches for pizza pan)

Toppings:

• Your favorite pizza sauce (store bought or home made)
• Mozzarella cheese or pizza blend (mozzarella, provolone, and Jack)
• Pepperoni

***Use your favorite toppings (some of mine are bacon, onions, sausage, bell peppers, olives, etc.)

Tools:

• Pizza pan
• Whisk
• Bowls
• Wooden
• Spoon
• Damp cloth
• Plastic Wrap

Print the recipe here on my website if you like.

The above links are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

STEP 2: Proof the Yeast

To start off let's proof the yeast. To do this, heat up your water in the microwave to about 105 to 115 degrees F. Then add the sugar and the yeast. Next use a whisk and mix it around a little bit. Now just set it aside for about 5 to 10 minutes until it gets nice and foamy. The yeast is active and ready to go!

STEP 3: Adding Oil

Now we just add your oil to the bowl with the yeast and stir it with a whisk.

STEP 4: Combine Dry Ingredients

Now let's combine our dry ingredients, by adding the semolina flour and the salt to the all purpose flour. You can use bread flour as well if you like. The semolina flour will help make the dough chewier. Although you can substitute the semolina with all purpose flour if you like, it just won't be quite the same. But it will still be good.

STEP 5: Mix in Dry Ingredients

Now we just mix in our dry ingredients slowly with the yeast mixture, maybe about a 4th of it at a time. You can start with your whisk, then move to using a wooden spoon. After awhile it will get hard to use even the wooden spoon, and the dough will form.

STEP 6: Knead the Dough

After the dough forms, I move from the wooden spoon to my hands. Start in the bowl, then pour out the dough onto your surface. Now continue adding your flour as you knead. Push down on the dough, then turn it a quarter turn, fold it toward you and push down with your palm, keep doing that for about 8 minutes. You will probably wind up with flour left over. Add flour as needed to keep it from sticking.

STEP 7: Let the Dough Rise

Next we let the dough rise. We put some olive oil in a large bowl, about half of a tablespoon or about two teaspoons, then using our fingers make sure to coat the inside of the bowl. Now we add the dough and coat the dough with the oil in the bowl. Now we place some plastic wrap and then a damp cloth on top. Place the bowl in a warm area and let it rise for and hour to an hour and a half.

STEP 8: Roll Out the Dough

Now we preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Our dough has risen so we take it out and cut it into equal parts. This recipe makes 3 medium sized thinner crust pizzas or two large thick crust pizzas. You can flip the dough in the air like the pros, or use a rolling pin to get the dough into the pizza shape.

STEP 9: Add Dough to Pizza Pan

Now we add some cornmeal to our pizza pan. This will keep the pizza from sticking. Although it is not completely necessary. The pan I am using is a nonstick pizza pan. The cornmeal does help it to get that classic bottom of the crust that you get at restaurants. Stretch out the pizza dough as needed to fill up the pan, then pinch the edges up a little bit.

STEP 10: Add Those Toppings

Next we just need to add our favorite toppings. I like to start with some olive oil drizzled on the top. Then add a light covering of pizza sauce. Then our cheese, I use a pizza blend of mozzarella, provolone, and jack. Now the pepperoni! Then bake it in a preheated oven (500 degrees F) for 7 to 12 minutes, until the crust is a light golden brown color and the cheese is all melted. Enjoy!

STEP 11: Video Tutorial

Print the recipe here on my website if you like.

No time to watch those steps in action!

Comments

[GeriJ3]

I made the pizza tonight and I used a flat metal pan with holes in it. I greased it with olive oil but the crust did not get crispy. What would you suggest?

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

You can bake it longer and at a hotter temp. :) Also make the crust thinner. :)

[ClaudioP34]

As I promised you, I checked your pizza dough recipe. The ingredients are right but I think 1 h for rising is not enough. I use about 3-4 g of yeast for 500 g of flour, do the dough like you do until step 7, then I let it rise for about 20 hours (I prepare the dough the day before). If you reduce the amount of yeast, you can leave the dough rising longer. The wife of a friend of mine manage to reach 48 h. Or a bit more yeast, and you can prepare the dough in the morning. But do not let it rise less than 6 hours, 1 hour is not enough.

Then, about 1 or 2 h before cooking, I take out the dough and cut it into equal parts, then roll them again to form balls, and let the balls of dough sitting for 1-2 h.

Better avoiding the rolling pin (the pin makes the bubbles of gas escaping from the dough), just shape the pizza using your hands and applying few pressure: there is not a real need to flip it into the air!

The oven must be pre-heated at max power (500 degrees F is good!)

A trick: try adding the cheese after the pizza has been in the oven for some minutes. But maybe the American pizza cheese is different from the Italian mozzarella (the one for pizza, that is different from the one to be eaten raw).

That's my recipe for homemade pizza, let's try and let me know. Apart the rising time, the rest of your Instructable is like I do it.

About the Italian pizza you have at the restaurant, we do not have one style of pizza: the pizza in Rome is thin and crusty, the pizza in Naples is thicker. There are also some restaurant in Rome that cook a kind of thick pizza, but different from the one in Naples. And the restaurant have much powerful ovens too, that reach more than 500 F.

We do not have "pepperoni pizza" too, indeed in Italian the word "peperoni" means "peppers": years ago I brought some American friends to a pizza restaurant in Rome, and one of them ordered the "pizza con peperoni" thinking it was a "pepperoni pizza". You can imagine his face when he saw a pizza without tomato sauce, only with mozzarella and slices of peppers! If in Italy you want something similar to pepperoni pizza, you shall ask for a "Diavola" (Devil's pizza), which is with a kind of hot spicy salami.

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

Awesome thanks for sharing Claudio!! I wish my oven got hotter then 500! haha I have made this recipe several times and have only ever let it rise 1 to 2 hrs or until doubled, I will let it sit out and rise a lot longer next time. Good idea on the rolling pin. Since I am not a good pizza flipper. The last time I made it about 3 weeks ago, I did just stretch it with my fingers. Oh to visit Italy some day and try the food!!! haha :) Thanks again for your tips!

[ClaudioP34]

Home ovens don't go hotter, mine reach 250°C, that is a bit less than 500 °.

Flipping the dough in the air is mainly for show :-) I heard that flipping give a best "texture" to the Naples-stile pizza, but all the best pizza restaurants I tried in Italy are not flipping the dough in the air.

If you are going to visit Italy, let me know!

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

That makes total sense about the dough flipping. haha, it does look really cool! I live in a town home right now, when I buy a house with a back yard I am totally going to build a brick oven for making pizza and breads. I will definitely let you know if I visit Italy! It would be fun to bring my camera gear and film a couple of episodes over there! haha

[ClaudioP34]

I forgot, the semolina flour ("semola") is a good trick also! You can use the semolina even instead of the cornmeal for the pizza pan.

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

Yes! I recently discovered the art of adding semolina flour to the dough. I like the corn meal on the bottom haha because it resembles what the local pizza shops seem to use on the bottom of theirs. But I wouldn't only buy cornmeal for that haha, so if I ran out, I will just use semolina on the bottom too! Thanks for the tip!

[grizzlybear52]

Since there is only 2 of us now, we will need to freeze some of the dough for another time. When do you freeze the dough? Before it rises or after?

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

Great question! After it has fully risen. Then divide it up into balls, lightly spray with kitchen spray, then place in a freezer bag, squish all of the air out, then place it in the freezer. You can freeze it for up to 3 months or so. When you want to make another pizza, take the dough out of the freezer the night before, and let it thaw in the refrigerator, then take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before stretching out the dough to make the pizza. Good luck!!

[JulieP105]

Make sure your yeast is active and not old. That's why you proof it before adding all your ingredients

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

Yes thank you, I explained that in step 2. :) I probably could have given a better explanation though.

[SuzyM1]

I let my dough proof overnight or for 12 to 14 hours. It makes a wonderful no knead dough. You can also make bread from it in the oven or a French (Dutch) oven.

Just make it before bedtime cover in an oiled bowl, preferably wood, and the next morning you have a nice proofed dough you can use in the day or evening. : )

[PattyP17]

Wow. Where I live, even though the house is very cool, the yeast would proof, then fall and not rise again in that amount of time.

[SuzyM1]

I have never heard of dough falling after this amount of time. Some people even proof their dough for 24 hours. In the winter I put the covered dough in the warmest room of the house.
You can put it on the oven with the light on also.
This dough can even be proofed in the the refrigerator so there may be a problem with your ingredients or other issue if your dough is falling. That just does not normally happen at all unless the dough is moved or tampered with in some way.
In Italy, it is very common for dough to be proofed overnight or longer.
I doubt proofing has anything to do with where you live. : )

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

Great tip! Thanks for sharing.

[Rongdallas1]

I didn't get all the way through the comments yet. But I like a very thin crust.

What about baking it on Himalayan salt, I have not checked the price yet.

It might be a good way to bake many things.

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

I don't have any experience with Himalayan salt. Try it out and let me know! :) For a thinner crust just use a little less dough and stretch it thinner, should do the trick.

[Rongdallas1]

Okay, I ordered a salt block from Amazon. They had the best price and it will only take about a little over a week to get delivered.

[In The Kitchen With Matt]

Great! Let me know how it goes!!