I have been making this original pizza dough forever… I tweaked it and changed it until we got it where we liked it. Back when we lived in Chicago we were doing our pizza’s on a gas grill and using a pizza stone. We made a lot of pizzas for a lot of people and have great memories of all of that. There was this one night…..
Below is a pic of Dave on our “Uge” (say it with Chicago Accent) back patio getting ready for pizza making. Circa 2010 ?
When we got to San Diego – hubster said the dough was too wet – and hard to get off the sneak and onto the stone. I then reduced the water from 1 1/4 C to 1 1/8 C (1 C + 2 Tbl) and it worked better for him. Pic below before even the backyard was done… Definitely 2014.
Then we bought a real Italian Pizza Oven – 2023 – and decided to shift gears to a less thick / more Neapolitan (thinner) style crust. (Will post those recipes too.)
With all that said – I just went back to this recipe and asked Dave to give it a go on the new Italian Pizza oven. It came out quite nice. I’m definitely going to put this dough back into rotation. Funny how life changes and you’d never have guessed where you’d be or what you’d be doing….
What’s special about this dough?
Four things really. 1) This dough is best made the day before you cook it. 2) This dough is made with All Purpose Flour (AP) and a bit of Durum flour. 3) This dough doesn’t get shaped until right before making pizzas. Makes it harder to get pretty round pizzas…if that is important to you… 🙂 4) I make this dough in my bread machine – no muss no fuss – Simplest of all my dough recipes. (Although you could readily use a mixer / your Kitchenaid dough hook instead).
FYI : Durum flour is a finer grind of semolina flour. Durum and Semolina are both milled from…durum wheat. The durum flour gives the pizza dough a bit of strength and a ‘chew’. Durum flour has a higher protein and gluten content than white / wheat flours.
Interestingly, the other two dough recipes I’m going to add use the Italian double zero “00” flour. 00 is a soft wheat flour and makes a flexible pasta or dough. The double zero makes for a finer / more responsive dough that won’t tear when its thin and will generate a crispier pizza crust.
Original Pizza Dough
Equipment
- Bread Maker — OR —
- Kitchenaid Mixer -(or whatever brand you have)
Ingredients
- 2¾ C Flour – All Purpose
- ½ C Durum Flour
- 1¼ Tsp Salt
- 2 Tbl Olive Oil – EVOO
- 1 C Warm Water
- 3 Tbl Warm Water (1 C + 3 Tbl)
- 1½ Tsp Yeast
Instructions
- Place all ingredients into your bread maker according to bread maker instructions / however you traditionally load the bread machine.
- Place on the Dough Cycle – Start.
- When dough is finished – it will have gone through the first raising / doubling cycle.
- Get a gallon zip lock bag (or bowl large enough to hold the dough) and grease the container with EVOO. Work the bag to get the oil all over the bag. Dump the dough into the bag and place in the fridge overnight.
- The next day – (late morning) bring the dough out and sit on the counter – let it come to room temp and begin fermenting / going through second raise. Maybe 6 hours before dinner ?
- Split the dough in half, and using your hands pull and shape it as best as you can into a circle / square / rectangle – whatever you like. Careful not to press out all the air bubbles. (DO NOT roll with a rolling pin!). Pretend you are working in a NYC pizza joint and use a fisted hand to pull and stretch the dough.
- Place the dough on parchment on your sneak – or on a dusting of Semolina or Corn Meal on your sneak. (think of transference – and how you'll get the built pizza off the sneak and onto your cooking surface… I think of the semolina or corn meal as marbles that the pizza rolls off.) We used to use parchment and Dave would use the parchment and pull the pizza onto the stone on the Big green egg / or on the Gas Grill. But now that we are in the pizza oven – it's too hot for the parchment and we are back to the semolina / corn meal.
