The best homemade pizza dough recipe

Whether you are a professional cook or only beginning to get to know the endless world of cooking, this pizza dough recipe is easy to prepare, and you won’t need to spend money on a pizza from a restaurant again. The best thing about this dough is that you can freeze it if you make too much of it.

Making a good pizza dough is perhaps the basis for future success. It is very clear that if we do not make a good dough, we will not have a good pizza. There are different versions, from doughs with slow fermentation to a dough with baking powder that does not need much time to reach the result.

Pizza dough consists of 5 basic ingredients: flour, water, salt, fats (EVOO from Spain), and yeast. The main ingredient is the flour, and once you find the flour that works best for you, do not change it. In any case to make a good dough, we need a strong flour, it is the ideal and for those who are not very familiar with these terms is the flour to make bread.

The best type of yeast to use, whether fresh or dry, is baker's yeast. Just keep in mind that the quantity will be one third less if you use dry yeast than fresh yeast. In average, it is 5.5 g sachet for 500 g of flour.

Another essential ingredient to make a good dough is water. We must add the water that the flour takes or the other way around. If it turns out that the dough is too liquid, you can add more flour. Flour does not usually behave the same way, so it is important to see how it reacts.

The last main ingredient is extra virgin olive oil that is one of the best fats for the pizza dough.

Preparation method

1. In a large bowl we introduce part of the wheat flour. We leave about 4 tablespoons of flour separated to fatten the dough. With a spoon we make a hole in the center of the bowl and add the yeast dissolved in water.
2. With a wooden spoon, we stir from the center outward while incorporating flour gradually. Salt and extra virgin olive oil should be added. To avoid issues with the fermentation process, it is crucial that the salt and the yeast not come into direct touch.
3. We keep churning the mixture that is starting to resemble dough; by this time, it should be sticky but still firm. We set up the workspace where we will knead; a kitchen countertop, for instance, is ideal.
4. Fill the area of the worktop with flour, take the dough out of the bowl and start working the dough with our hands. It is very important to refine the dough to make it more elastic and rise better. To refine it, we must stretch the dough like a churro and twist it in a spiral several times. At the end we put it back together and knead it again for about ten minutes. This is the trick that makes the dough amazing.
5. While kneading you can add (if you are an expert you don't need to) a little more flour than we have reserved to fatten the dough, about 50 grams.
6. The dough is formed into a ball. The preceding bowl is taken and floured. We place the dough ball inside of it. For 45 to 1 hour, we cover the bowl with a cotton cloth. Use the following tip to determine how long to let the dough rise: when we press the dough with our finger and it returns to its original position, the dough is ready for preparing.
7. And here we have the dough to start preparing the pizza with the ingredients you like the most.

With these simple instructions your pizza will look and taste wonderful and all your guests will dream of tasting your pizza once again.