Best-Ever Pizza Dough Recipe (No Knead) - Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking (2024)

FAQs

What makes pizza dough more fluffy? ›

To make fluffy and textured homemade pizza dough, use a combination of all-purpose and bread flour, allow the dough to rise sufficiently (usually 1-2 hours), and incorporate a small amount of sugar to feed the yeast.

Generally, no knead dough has a slower fermentation than other pizza doughs. The gradual fermentation process helps develop more flavor as the dough sits.

Too little yeast and your dough won't rise enough, and the pizza base will taste bland. Use too much yeast and your dough may over-ferment. Tell-tale signs are your dough expanding too much or tasting and smelling a bit sour, with an almost alcoholic aftertaste (the yeast produces alcohol as it ferments).

The secret to a crispy pizza with a light and fluffy interior? Start with the right dough: one that has both yeast and baking powder for rise and puff. Then, bake the whole thing on a pre-heated baking stone or steel to create an unbelievably light, crunchy crust.

00 flour is finely ground Italian flour that contains about 12% protein, or 12% gluten. It's the traditional flour used to make Neapolitan-style pizza. Since its gluten content is similar to bread flour, it also produces a pizza crust with chew.

Salt: Salt adds necessary flavor. Sugar: 1 Tablespoon of sugar increases the yeast's activity and tenderizes the dough, especially when paired with a little olive oil. Cornmeal: Cornmeal isn't in the dough, but it's used to dust the pizza pan. Cornmeal gives the pizza crust a little extra flavor and crisp.

Rolling pins push out the gas, reducing oven spring and creating a dense, tough crust. Rolling pins are forbidden when making official Neapolitan pizza. Practice: Just like any other skill, your pizza stretching will improve the more you practice it.

The general rule is to let pizza dough rise until it has doubled in size, which could take anywhere between 1-1.5 hours. This will give the yeast time to activate and create a light, airy texture in the crust. However, I personally prefer cold-fermenting the dough for 48 hours for extra flavor.

Punching down dough leads to a more even rise, fewer air pockets, and a stronger gluten structure – so not punching down dough leads to the opposite.

What is overproofed pizza dough? ›

An overproofed dough won't expand much during baking, and neither will an underproofed one. Overproofed doughs collapse due to a weakened gluten structure and excessive gas production, while underproofed doughs do not yet have quite enough carbon dioxide production to expand the dough significantly.

Bring your dough to room temperature.

Before you begin stretching, warm up your cold dough for at least 30 minutes at room temperature. Gluten, the protein that makes pizza dough chewy, is tighter in cold conditions like the fridge, which is why cold pizza dough will stretch out and snap back just like a rubber band.

The best approach to achieve a light, airy crust is to stretch the dough. Yeast produces gas bubbles, which increase volume and fluffiness. Those air pockets in the dough won't disappear no matter how much you knead it. It will shuffle them about, merging smaller air pockets into larger ones.

Pizza dough needs time to relax and rise, but you don't want it to over-rise. That's where aeration comes in. You introduce air without overworking the gluten by shaking or folding the dough. This makes for a more relaxed dough yielding a light and airy crust.

Next, you'll portion out the dough. Ideally, this is done the day you are making pizza. Once you ball up your doughs, keep them covered and let them rest for a good 3-4 hours. The gluten needs to relax for you to be able to stretch it out to make pizza.