Why is there so much crappy pizza out there? I’ll tell you why: not enough love.
And crappy dough.
Now, I can’t do much about the love, but I sure can help you with the dough. And if you’re dough is good, all you need is some good quality, fresh ingredients, and you’re golden.
Why you need to learn this
Once you get the hang of making dough, you’ll realize just how simple and basic it really is, and you’ll be banging out pizzas to beat the band.
The steps you take
Let’s start by acknowledging that there are lots of different styles of pizza out there, lots of different crusts. We’ll do a thin crust, what could be called a Neapolitan-style pizza. The dough is pretty wet and loose, but it’s easy to work with and bakes very quickly.
You’ll notice with the pizza dough recipe here that you end up with four or five individual pieces. These are great for making (roughly) 9- to 10-inch personal pizzas. When your dough has been properly proofed, it’s time to turn it into a round, flat, disk.
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The fully proofed dough should be shaped, roughly, like a doughy dome. First, we have to flatten it: Make your dominant hand into a fist and dust it with flour. Press it straight down into the dough to flatten it and expel as much gas as you can. Punch down around the outside to turn your dome-ish dough into a flat circle.
From here, you could always just roll it out with a rolling pin, but, what fun is that. Follow these instructions for stretching it by hand. It’s fun.
1. Hold your hands together in front of you at about chest height so that your fingers are curved and relaxed. Touch together the tips of the fingernails of your index, middle and ring fingers. Your two hands should look more or less like the top half of a heart. Not a human heart. A heart like a card suit. Your thumbs should be touching in an upside down “v” shape. (I know this is confusing. Really, what I should say is just, “Look at the photo.”)
2. Using your dominant hand, lay the dough over your other hand so that it drapes down over it. Return your dominant hand under the dough, back into its original position as described in Step 1.
3. Lift your hands up slightly and kick the fingers of both hands forward so that they kick off each other, straightening them out backward. At the same time, move your thumbs so that they begin to point toward your body. This stretches the dough gently, making it wider and thinner.
3. Return your hands to the original position (as in Step 1), only, instead of having those three fingernails touching, move your dominant hand out from your body a little so that your two hands are not symmetrical: your dominant hand will be a little further from your body than your other hand. This rotates the dough slightly.
4. Without moving the dough, slip your dominant hand back toward your body to its original position, symmetrical to your other hand. Now, you’re back where you started, but the dough is rotated to a slightly new position a few degrees off of where it was originally. Dig?
5. Now, when you repeat the action described in Step 3, you’ll be stretching the dough along a different diameter than you did the first time.
6. Continue doing this, making the dough rotate completely, several times, as you stretch it out. By now, depending on the relative elasticity of your dough, it will be stretched to about 5 to 7 inches and have a relatively even thickness.
7. Use the thumb and index finger of your dominant hand to grab the dough by its edge and lift it off your other hand, allowing it to drape down, like you’re holding a dishrag or a sleeping cobra.
8. With the thumb and index finger of your other hand, pinch the edge of the dough a couple inches from your dominant hand. Now you’re holding the dough in both hands, still draping down like a sleeping … well, you know.
9. Holding the dough firmly in your non-dominant hand, use your dominant hand to pull the dough away, stretching it slightly. When it stretches slightly, relax the grip of your non-dominant hand so that the edge of the dough is pulled a little bit through its thumb and index finger. Your two hands will now be 3 to 4 inches apart.
10. Move your dominant hand back to grab the dough an inch or two from your non dominant hand and go back to Step 9.
11. Repeat Steps 9 and 10 over and over. This stretches the perimeter of the dough while gravity stretches the interior. When the dough gets to about 9-inches in diameter, you’re done.
Top your pizza with a simple red sauce to about an inch from the perimeter and top with your favorite ingredients. Bake on a pizza stone or sheet pan in a very hot oven (425 to 500 degrees).
DeWan is a freelance writer and a culinary instructor at Kendall College in Chicago.
Thin crust pizza dough
Prep: 10 minutes
Rise: 2 hours to 2 hours, 30 minutes
Bake: 12-15 minutes
Makes: 4 or 5 small pizzas
The dough also can be mixed by hand with a wooden spoon.
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 packet (1/4 ounce) instant yeast
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, salt, yeast, water and olive oil. Mix with a dough hook and knead at medium/low speed until dough cleans sides of bowl and gathers smoothly around dough hook, about 5 minutes.
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2. Remove dough to a lightly floured board. Knead by hand to bring together, about 1 minute or less.
3. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, turn to coat dough with oil, cover with plastic wrap and ferment until doubled in bulk, 60-90 minutes.
4. Turn dough onto a lightly floured board with a dough scraper; divide into 4 or 5 equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball, trying not to deflate too much. Place balls apart on an oiled tray, turning to coat with oil. Cover with plastic; proof until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
5. Place one ball at a time on a floured peel. Stretch dough into a 9- to 10-inch circle. Dress dough with toppings, slide pizza onto a pizza stone in a 425-degree oven and bake until done, 12-15 minutes.
Note: If you don’t have a pizza stone, the pizza can be baked on a baking sheet.
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James P. DeWan’s monthly columns for Good Eating have been published in the book “Prep School: How to Improve Your Kitchen Skills and Cooking Techniques” (Agate Surrey, $19.95), at www.store.chicagotribune.com/books, and wherever books are sold.