Pizza Dough

This is a slow rising dough, but is more than worth the time required.

• Use a scale!
• Now that you have a scale, 720ml of water weighs exactly 720g (much easier than using a measuring cup)
• Make the water about 70°F.  Add the the water, sugar & yeast to the dough mixer bowl and whisk (by hand) until dissolved. Let sit for 10 minutes.
• Put the dough hook on the mixer, add about half the flour and start the mixer on slow.
• Once the ingredients have been mixed, add the salt. You need to add the salt after the yeast/water has been mixed into the dough, since the salt retards the action of the yeast.
• Increase speed to medium
• Adding Flour:
• Add the rest of the flour now.
• Keep kneading for another 5 minutes then transfer to 4 Quart plastic bucket with a snap-on lid, and let sit at room temperature for a few hours to hydrate and rise
• Folding: Take the dough out, grab it with both hands and pull it until it’s about 2x the length it was, then fold it in half. Rotate 90° and repeat until you have done this 4 times.
• Let rise again until double in bulk and repeat the folding step above.
• Let rise overnight.
• In the morning, repeat the folding step above.
  

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  When Ready to Bake:

• Generously flour a plastic cutting board and dump all the dough on to it. Cut dough into four equal pieces.
• Gently form each piece into a ball by pulling the sides underneath. Lightly dust with flour and place on a plastic cutting board. Cover the entire board and dough balls with plastic wrap and let rise for approximately another 4 hours until doubled again.
• To use the dough, generously dust a pizza peel with cornmeal. Gently lift the dough off the cutting board with a bench knife or other wide scraper and lightly dust it in flour. Gently poke the edges with your fingers, then stretch it out into a disk and lay it on the dusted pizza peel.

Try it with Pesto Garlic Pizza or Roasted Red Pepper, Sausage and Mushroom Pizza

Notes:
Chlorine in tap water kills yeast and bottled water contains no chlorine. Because this recipe depends on a small amount of yeast and a slow rise, using chlorinated tap water will result in inconsistent results and great frustration, so use bottled. It doesn’t need to be imported, just non-chlorinated and not highly mineralized.

Makes (4) pizzas the same size as the peel and stone