Over the years I’ve been asked by people to share the pizza crust recipe I use. I worked at a pizza place for years and had experience making dough, albeit in huge batches, so I wasn’t able to replicate the recipe. I have tried many recipes over the years in search of the one most reminiscent of the dough from Pizza Palace and this is by far my favorite. The recipe comes from one of my most loved cookbooks, Cooking Thin with Chef Kathleen. My copy is dog-eared, food-stained, and the one book that actually gets to reside on my kitchen counter permanently. Here is the recipe along with my tips at the end:
Easy Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 2 packages dry active yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water from the tap
- 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
- Flour, for the work surface
- Cornmeal, to dust
Directions
In a mixing bowl fitted with a dough hook, place flour, yeast, salt and sugar. While mixer is running, gradually add water and knead on low speed until dough is firm and smooth, about 10 minutes.
Turn machine off. Pour oil down inside of bowl. Turn on low once more for 15 seconds to coat inside of bowl and all surfaces of dough with the oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise in warm spot until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.
If using a pizza stone, place stone in oven on bottom rack, preheat oven 1 hour ahead. Punch dough down, cut in half. Place half of the dough on generously floured work surface. By hand, form dough loosely into a ball and stretch into a circle. Using a floured rolling pin, roll dough into large circle until very thin. Don’t worry if your circle isn’t perfect and if you get a hole just pinch the edges back together.
To prevent dough from sticking to counter, turn over the dough and sprinkle with flour. Also, flour the counter top and rolling pin as needed. Sprinkle pizza peel or cookie sheet generously with cornmeal. Transfer dough to pizza peel or cookie sheet with no lip. Add toppings. Slide dough onto pizza stone or place cookie sheet with pizza on bottom rack.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden. Roll out remaining dough and top with desired toppings or freeze in freezer bags.
My tips:
1) I use a Kitchenaid stand mixer with the dough hook and let the dough knead for a full 10 minutes
2) I typically use bread flour, but AP flour also yields a nice crust
3) I use a rectangle perforated aluminum pizza pan
4) I bake my pizzas for about 15 minutes because I don’t stretch the crust super thin
5) I make 4 personal pizzas with a batch of dough
6) I like to use Classico Traditional Pizza Sauce and Galbani Whole Milk Low Moisture Shredded Mozzarella
7) I use a bench scraper to cut the dough into desired portions and roll each into a ball. I let the dough rest on the counter for 5 to 10 minutes- I used to skip this step, but it does allow the dough to be worked more easily
Now it’s your turn to make your own pizza! Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
shougmama 