The Best Simple Pizza Dough

The Best Simple Pizza Dough

This is my favourite and basic simple pizza dough recipe

5 from 3 votes

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Course: Main Course, Snack

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: easy pizza dough, pizza dough, pizza dough recipe, simple pizza dough

Prep Time: 20

Bulk rise plus the 30 minute bench rest: 1 30

Total Time: 1 50

Servings: 12" pizzas

Calories: 651kcal

Author: Martin (Dad What Cooks)

Cost: £2

Equipment

1 Pizza stone optional

Ingredients

500 g Bread flour Strong white bread flour
7 g Yeast Dried fast acting is ok
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil extra virgin
325 ml water luke warm, approx 22 - 25 degrees Celsius

US (Cups/oz) - Metric (g/ml)

Instructions

Measure out all your ingredients. Mix together the water and yeast and let it stand for at least 5 minutes before beginning. The water needs to be about 25℃ to 30℃ to allow the yeast to become active.
7 g Yeast, 325 ml water
Pour in the yeast water a little at a time. Mixing with the spoon takes at least 5 minutes and needs to keep going to mix everything in. Gradually add the oil in to the mix and keep mixing. Add the salt with the flour rather than straight onto the yeast, as direct contact can slow down the yeast action.
500 g Bread flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp olive oil
Keep mixing until the dough starts to form a ball and stops sticking to the side of the bowl.
At this point, it's now time to cover your hands in flour and grab the mix. Start kneading the dough and make a note of the time. You need to knead for at least 10 minutes to get a good rise on the dough. Kneading dough develops the gluten, which gives the dough its structure and stretch.
After 10 - 15 minutes of kneading you should be knackered and have a really nice malleable ball of dough. Give your mixing bowl a good wash out and then spray it with oil. You can also use butter or oil, but I find oil spray is a bit easier to manage and gives a more even covering.
Place the dough ball in the oiled bowl and then cover with cling film (or if you want a tea towel) to keep it from drying out. Then set the bowl down somewhere nice and warm for an hour to let the yeast work its magic and start to rise to just under double in size.
After an hour, you should see the dough has risen to at least twice the size it was when it went in. At this point the dough can be given another quick knead, then split in to the portions required. I'd suggest balling up into equal measures of around 270g per pizza.
You can then put the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours until ready to use, or let it sit on the top for 30 minutes before it will be ready to shape.
*** Freezing ***
If you plan to freeze your dough, once you have split it up, wrap tightly in cling film and freeze them at this point.

Notes

As a pizza base, this dough takes around 6 - 8 minutes to cook at 220C (200C fan). You can of course cook in a pizza oven too if you have one.

As a garlic bread (garlic butter melted on it) cooking time is around 6 minutes at the above temperatures.

For ease, use a meat or probe thermometer to get the water temperatures right for optimal yeast activation.

Nutrition