How to Get a Perfect Pizza Crust with Accessible Ingredients
My husband and I love making pizza together. Our whole Saturday night ritual is to assemble a pie while having a light cocktail and then eat it on the couch with a good movie. It was back in 2015 that we first figured out how to get a perfect pizza crust. Now, it’s time to share our secrets.
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And let me apologize now for the lack of nice pretty pictures… I will update these in the future because I’m self-conscious about the imagery.
Also, as a quick note, this recipe has been posted as a little series on how to make Bocce Balls. I hope you’ll give those a try as well!
Pizza Making Equipment
I want to start with the crazy pizza equipment that we have. I’m including a shopping list of Amazon links for your convenience. I tried to find exactly what we use here at home. In the case of the mezzaluna, the branding on ours has washed off, so I found a comparable one with good reviews for you.
Pizza Stone
A pizza stone is going to give you that perfect pizza crust that you find on classic brick oven pies. It allows your pizza to cook quickly and thoroughly. And while a metal pan will give you a fine pie, it won’t be anything like your pizza-stone pizza.
Before you start making pizza, you’ll wipe your pizza stone down with a soft washcloth and warm water to remove any debris. Then, you’ll oil it up with neutral-flavored cooking oil, like vegetable oil, and bake it at 425ºF for an hour to season (here’s a good source for more details).
We love ours, even though we kind of abuse it. A good pizza stone will last you forever as long as you take care of it. Do not, for example, put it on your grill, and leave it there overnight in the cold. It’ll break in half. There are some stones out there that don’t require seasoning, so of course, read your package first.
Pizza Peel
We have found that the best way to bake a pizza is to put our pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven while it’s preheating. Because of that, having a pizza peel to move our pie onto the stone is a necessity. I’ve included a video in the notes on how to use a pizza peel.
It may take a little practice, but we have a trick of our own. If you watch through the Bon Appetit mini-series on perfect pizza, they build their pizzas on the counter and try (and fail a lot) to flick it onto the pizza peel, then into the oven.
We’ve found that it’s easiest to sprinkle a bit of cornmeal down on the peel, and build our pizza right on there. You have to be quick about it, and you have to give the peel a little jiggle every now and then to make sure there’s no stickage.
Then, you just have to be able to confidently and purposefully jiggle the assembled pizza onto the stone.
Mezzaluna Pizza Cutter
I’m going to include my recommendation for a pizza cutter because I love mine. Yes, a regular wheely pizza cutter is great and does the job and fine. However, I, personally stink at making a straight cut with those. I use a mezzaluna pizza cutter for quick, efficient, and straight cuts.
Another bonus is that you can get some weight behind it and definitely make sure that you’ve cut all the way through your crust. Our last apartment and our new house both have limited kitchen storage, so I understand the worry that it takes up a lot of real estate.
Since we are basically homemade pizza connoisseurs and we use our equipment every week, I’m not so concerned about that. Our mezzaluna fits along the length of my baking utensils drawer with my bench scraper. They fit right in there, so my drawer space isn’t affected so much.
The Logistics of Perfect Pizza Crust
We’re not going to get super fancy here, it’s just about getting a homemade pizza that beats the flavor of a delivery pie. My ingredients are water, sugar, yeast, all-purpose flour, and olive oil (oh, and salt!). It’s really not hard. Here’s what you should know!
You Do Need Sugar for Perfect Pizza Crust
My healthy followers are getting antsy about the sugar, I just know it. I’m going to be blunt though: there is a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar in a 12 serving pizza. I think you’ll survive.
You need the sugar to feed your yeast and wake them up. The little yeasties have a job to do and that is to build gluten and to “burp” out little air pockets in the dough. If you take care of the yeast, you’ll have a better dough.
More About Little Yeasties
Alton Brown’s sock puppet yeast illustrations will stick with me forever. I love them! But it’s a great thing to understand whenever you’re making bread that yeast are living organisms that leaven your bread.
Why are we just using active dry yeast? Well, it’s accessible. You have to go to a specialty store to find a good cake yeast. The other thing is that a jar of active dry yeast will last you a lot longer as the shelf life of a cake yeast is so short.
I’m not big on that fast rise kind. For some reason it doesn’t do what I want it to, and it seems to have a shorter shelf life, as well. So, I keep a jar of active dry yeast in my freezer.
The Options of Flour for Perfect Pizza Crust
Flour is an essential part of your pizza, so it’s probably surprising that we just use all purpose flour. This is, again, because all purpose is accessible, and it’s more likely that you already have some in your kitchen.
As you get more practiced in pizza making, I’d encourage you to test out bread flour or even going to a specialty shop and playing with wheat flour. However, this is not a gluten-free recipe, so I would not recommend trying a non-wheat flour.
While all purpose flour returns a good crust with nice chew and flavor, a bread flour is going to create stronger texture. It’s a strong flour that encourages better gluten development.
Aging Your Dough
I recommend letting your dough go for at least 6 hours, or for the very best flavor, letting it proof for 24 hours. The longer your dough goes, the more work your yeasties can do to at creating flavor. So, yes, you can technically make a pizza after a 2 hour proof, but it is not going to taste nearly as good.
Kneading the Dough
I use a stand mixer because you have to knead the dough for a LONG time. I’m talking about 15 minutes of high powered kneading. This is to really develop the gluten and get a strong crust that won’t flop under the weight of toppings.
If you are going without a stand mixer with a hook attachment, be prepared for a work out. The dough is sticky at first and you should not add too much more flour. You’ll be kneading the dough until it stops sticking, and is relatively smooth.
In any case, you will know you’re done kneading when you can press a finger into the dough and the imprint bounces back.
Alright. That’s it! Are you ready to make some pizza crust? Do you have additional questions? Please feel free to message me about issues or concerns. Comment below if you’re trying my recipe!
Perfect Pizza Crust
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Hook Attachment
- Large Glass Bowl
- Dish Towel
Ingredients
- ½ cup filtered water
- ½ tsp sugar
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- 2 Tbsp olive oil plus more for oiling the bowl
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
- Warm ½ cup of water to 100°F (roughly 30 seconds in the microwave). Stir in sugar until it dissolves. Then sprinkle yeast over the top of water. Allow to bloom for 5 minutes.
- Add 1 cup of flour to a small bowl and pour in the yeast mixture. Stir to combine until no dry spots remain. It should be very loose. Cover and rest for 1 hour. This is your starter.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add remaining ½ cup of flour, olive oil, and salt to the rested starter.
- Attach the bread hook, and knead on low until everything is combined. Then, turn the speed up to medium high and let it go for 15 minutes.
- When the dough is done, it should be tacky but comes cleanly away from the bowl. You should be able to press a finger into the dough and have the print bounce back.
- Form the dough into a ball with a tight smooth surface. Place into an oiled bowl.
- Cover with a tea towel and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or up to 2 days. If you're making the pizza dough for tonight, do not refrigerate and allow to rise on the counter at room temperature until doubled in size (at least 2 hours).
To Make Pizza
- Place a pizza stone onto the bottom rack of your oven, and preheat to 550°F (or as high as your oven will go) for half an hour.
- Sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel and set aside. Cornmeal will act like ball bearings so your pizza will slide easily from the peel to the stone.
- Flour your counter and press the dough out into a round of 14 inch diameter. Optionally, use a rolling pin to get the dough even. It should be fairly thin.
- Move the dough to the pizza peel testing to make sure it does not stick.
- Top your pizza with sauce, cheese, and toppings. Jiggle the peel occasionally to make sure that the dough is not sticking.
- Once topped, immediately move pizza from the peel to the stone (see video in notes for how to do this).
- Bake pizza for about 8 minutes or until cheese is brown and crust is cooked and bubbly.
