Delicious pizza dough: recipes with photos

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Why, when we want to taste real Italian pizza, we dial the number of the delivery service? Or go out to the city in a cafe? Yes, because when we try to make pizza at home, we often end up with a thick Slavic open pie with filling. Also edible and even tasty, but still not quite what we wanted. The correct dough for pizza should be thin, slightly crispy and at the same time tender and soft. The filling is of secondary importance. With the same set of products, you can bake pies. But only the dough makes the culinary product a pizza. How to learn to make such a foundation? What is her secret? Do you really need to spend years to become a pizzaiolo - a certified master in the preparation of this type of pastry? By no means! Anyone can make pizza dough, like in a pizzeria, even if they do not have special culinary talents. You just need to know some of the features, the nuances of kneading such a base. Our article will tell about them.

Recipe Overview

Pizza dough, unlike the basis for other pastries, has its ownpeculiarities. It must be very flexible. That is, so flexible that, holding one edge of the dough, you can stretch the bun into a wide layer, thin, like gauze. On the other hand, such a foundation must also be solid. After all, the dough serves as a "basket" for the filling. In no case should the cake stick to the baking sheet. Therefore, you should always include real olive oil in the list of ingredients. Most pizza dough recipes mention yeast. Thanks to these bacteria, the base is airy and light. But there are also recipes in which fermented milk products, primarily kefir, play the role of yeast. As for the rest of the ingredients, they are basic. Of course, many pizzaiolos believe that they should take a mixture of ordinary flour and "durum" - from durum wheat. But that's not the point. The main things required for a proper test are olive oil, wheat, yeast or lactic acid bacteria, water, s alt and sugar. Do you think that kneading dough is long, troublesome and requires some kind of virtuosity? There are recipes according to which you can spread the topping on the pizza base in twenty minutes. However, the dish will only benefit if you work on it for a quarter of an hour longer. And now let's get acquainted with individual recipes.

Thin dough in record time

Many chefs prefer not to deal with yeast, considering kneading dough with it to be a long and difficult task. The bacterial culture is very capricious, loves a strict temperature regime and dies from the slightest draft. Yeast also needs time to wake up. They are longmultiply, raising their basis by their activity. But yeast dough is rich and safe. The last way is more simple. And for a very quick pizza dough, use dry yeast.

Combine a bag of this powder with flour (175 grams) and a pinch of s alt. In a glass with 125 milliliters of water, add a tablespoon of olive oil. Pour liquid into dry ingredients. Knead the dough until smooth in a bowl. Then transfer it to a floured surface of the table. We continue kneading for another three minutes. We form a bun, grease it with olive oil. Place in a bowl covered with cling film. We put for forty minutes in a warm place. During this time, the dough will double in volume. Knead two more minutes. Roll out into a thin layer, form the sides of the pizza. Spread the stuffing and bake.

Express dough

If you have already prepared the filling, then you can start working with the pizza base by turning on the oven. Before it has time to warm up to 130 degrees, you will already have a raw semi-finished product. In a bowl, mix two teaspoons of dry yeast and one teaspoon of sugar. Fill with a standard glass of warm water. The most optimal liquid temperature is 40-45 degrees. No thermometer? It doesn't matter: try the water with your finger. It should be very warm, but not scalding hot. Stir the yeast with sugar, let stand for ten minutes. To make a delicious pizza dough, sift 350 grams (or two and a half glasses) of flour into a bowl. So you will not only break the lumps, but also saturate the powderoxygen. Mix flour with a teaspoon of s alt. Add the loose mixture to the yeast. Don't forget to add two tablespoons of olive oil. Knead the dough quickly. As soon as a homogeneous structure is obtained, let it stand for five minutes. Roll out very thin pizza dough. Transfer to a baking sheet, brush with olive oil. Bake for five minutes. Then grease with sauce, lay out the filling. We send to bake until cooked for another ten minutes.

Recipe for sourdough with honey

Let's make our job a little more difficult, but what an amazing result! Yeast pizza dough is thin and flaky, crispy on the outside, but soft and tender on the inside. If you don't know what a sponge is, let me explain. We allow the yeast to wake up and activate even before we start kneading. With this method of preparation, the dough is even more airy. The dough is usually made with warm, sugar-sweetened milk. But in this recipe, we activate the yeast (a bag of dry product per 7 grams) with natural honey (a tablespoon). Mix both ingredients and pour a glass of warm water. It is important that the liquid is not cold, otherwise the yeast will not wake up. And hot water, above 50 degrees, will simply destroy the entire colony. Stir the dough with a fork and leave in a warm place without drafts for five minutes. You will know that the yeast has “earned” by the fact that a light foam has appeared on the surface of the liquid.

Dough kneading

Using these five minutes to good use while the dough is cooking. Sift three cups of flour into a bowlmix it with two pinches of s alt. Pour in a tablespoon of olive oil. We stir. We add steam. Knead the dough. At first, it will seem too cool to you. But do not worry: let it stand for about forty minutes in a warm place. The dough will completely change its texture. It will become soft, pliable and very elastic. True, such yeast pizza dough is rather capricious and demanding on the temperature regime of the environment. Therefore, in order not to risk, we heat the oven to a hundred degrees, then turn it off and put the bowl with the kolobok covered with a damp towel inside. After forty minutes, the grown dough is again crushed and rolled into a thin layer. We form a pizza. We bake it for at least a quarter of an hour at a high temperature (220 degrees).

Yeast dough for pizza with butter

First, heat half a glass of milk to 35 degrees. We dissolve in it a bag of dry yeast or 15 grams of fresh. Heat the butter until liquid. We need two tablespoons of this product. Do not forget that the optimal temperature for the vital activity of yeast bacteria is 45 degrees. Therefore, before pouring the melted butter into the milk mixture, cool it slightly. Stir and start adding flour in portions. In total, it should take at least 200 grams, not counting the one with which you will sprinkle the work surface during the kneading process. Don't forget to season the pizza dough with a pinch of s alt. Let the kolobok stand for about forty minutes. To keep the dough from drying outgrease it with vegetable oil. After that, we crush it again and roll it out. If your microwave has a "Convection" mode, then pizza on such a dough can also be cooked using such a kitchen device.

A bit of history

As follows from historical documents, cakes with seasonal vegetables and pieces of meat or fish were baked in ancient Greece. Then this dish took root in ancient Rome. The recipe for “flat bread” was not forgotten in the Middle Ages either. And since the 17th century, when tomatoes began to be widely eaten in Europe, pizza from the dinner of the poor has turned into a gourmet delight from aristocratic circles. Over the long centuries of the existence of the dish, various recipes for kneading dough have appeared. They all come from the same set of products and even their proportions. But the algorithm of the baker's actions is different. Let's make pizza dough the way the Italian masters do it. This is a labor-intensive business, but our efforts will pay off handsomely.

Classic kneading recipe

Flour (preferably from durum wheat) sift on the table. At the top of such a hill we make a recess. We add yeast. While kneading the flour from the periphery to the center, alternately add warm water, then extra virgin olive oil. The dough will shrink into a tight ball. S alt it and knead for ten minutes. Strong male hands are needed here. We ruthlessly knead the hard dough, hitting it with force on the countertop. But even after ten minutes of such work, it will remain "rubber". We don't worry about this. Divide the dough into two or threeparts. We roll each piece into a bun, wrap it tightly with cling film or put it in a hermetically sealed container. Place in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, we form a cake from each piece. Correct, classic pizza dough needs to be rolled out without the help of a rolling pin. Grasping the edge of the piece, we throw it in a rotational motion. From this, a very elastic dough is stretched into a thin layer. The Italian government is seriously considering introducing the DOC quality label for pizza, just like wine. This patented product must be kneaded only by hand, without a rolling pin, and the product must be baked only on wood in a special oven.

Kefir dough

Lactic acid bacteria fluff the flour base just as well as yeast. In addition, they are not capricious and do not require long standing. So let's take kefir, sour cream, yogurt and even fresh milk as the basis of the dough. Consider the first recipe first.

Pizza dough on kefir is prepared like this. Melt five tablespoons of margarine or spread in a frying pan. The fire should be very small, the fat should not boil. Pour a glass of kefir into a wide bowl. It can be of any fat content. When choosing a fermented milk product, look for a label that says "bio". This means that kefir contains a colony of living bacteria. We drive an egg into a bowl. Mix until smooth. Add melted margarine. Mix again. We begin to sift two cups of flour directly into the bowl. Add a pinch of s alt. When the dough reachesconsistency, thick enough to knead with your hands, move it to the table. The surface must be sprinkled with flour in advance. Such a dough does not need to be defended. It can be immediately rolled out and formed into a cake.

With milk

As mentioned above, yeast-free pizza dough recipes are also plentiful. How to make the basis for a pie with fresh milk? Sift two cups of flour on the table in advance in the form of a slide. Add a teaspoon of s alt to it. Break two eggs into a bowl. Warm up a little one hundred milliliters of milk. Pour in a thin stream into the eggs. In no case should milk be hot, otherwise the protein will curdle. Mix well. We make a funnel in the flour hill. We pour into it - not immediately, but in separate portions in two or three doses - the milk-egg mixture. Knead the dough in a circular motion, adding flour from the periphery of the slide to its center. Even when a tight bun is formed, we do not stop working for another ten minutes. From time to time, sprinkle the palms with flour so that the dough does not stick to the fingers. We wrap the gingerbread man in a damp cloth and leave for a quarter of an hour at room temperature. Such pizza is baked at a lower temperature than made on yeast dough. It is enough if you preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Depending on the thickness of the product, it will take from 20 minutes to half an hour to cook. By the way, milk pizza dough keeps well. To do this, put the bun in a bag and keep it in the refrigerator. The product has a four-day shelf life.

Dough on the water

Don't forget that pizza has long been the food of the poor. BUTtherefore, the products for its foundation were the most budgetary. In this recipe, we will deviate a little from this rule and introduce an egg into the list of ingredients. This way pizza dough without yeast will be stronger.

In a wide and deep bowl, mix the egg, one teaspoon of s alt and sugar. Pour in 50 milliliters of olive oil. Beat the whole mass with a whisk. Add a glass (200 milliliters) of water. Beat well again. It is important that the oil and water come into contact. When the mass becomes homogeneous, add, sifting, two cups of flour. Knead elastic dough. If it continues to stick to your hands, add another cup of flour. Roll out the dough immediately. We form a circle with sides, grease with sauce, lay out the pizza filling. We bake at a temperature of 180-190 degrees. The cake may take 20 minutes to make.

Very crispy dough

Around the second half of the 18th century, pizza moved from the huts of the poor to the palaces of the aristocracy. They began to put not only sardines in the pie, but cheese and sausage left over from yesterday's dinner. Mozzarella, camembert, noble Roquefort were used, and meat - prosciutto, salami and other delicacies. The changes affected not only the filling, but also the pizza dough. They began to add spicy herbs to the base, and instead of yeast or whey - white wine. Let's look at one of these aristocratic recipes. The process of kneading the dough takes place in the usual way. But the products are a little different. Our baking powder will not be yeast, but wine bacteria and powder forcookies.

First of all, we sift two parts of ordinary wheat flour and one part of corn flour on the table. It is the latter that gives the finished dough such an appetizing crunch. Mix s alt, a tablespoon of dry oregano and a pack of baking powder (cookie powder) into a flour slide. We make a hole at the top. Pour in two-thirds of warm water. Knead, tossing flour from the periphery to the center. Add one third of a glass of white wine. Pour olive oil. Knead vigorously until the dough stops sticking to your hands and becomes pliable, like warm wax. We roll out, put the stuffing and bake, as indicated in the classic recipe.

American pizza

In the 19th century, together with the Sicilian Ostarbeiters, who emigrated en masse to the United States, this dish reached the New World. In America, fast food lovers quickly appreciated the merits of pizza. Hearty, tasty, varied. The most "pizzeria" city was known as Chicago. It was there that they thought of selling segments of the pie. So for the price of one pizza, you could try different toppings. After the Second World War, pizza began to be sold everywhere in the United States. Now this dish takes second place in the popularity rating after the burger. Also in America they began to make very high sides of the dough circle. You could put a lot of toppings on such a pizza, like on a sandwich. The recipe for pizza dough has also undergone changes. The base for the pie has become more magnificent. The crust in such a pizza is higher. How to make American style dough?

Dissolve inhalf a glass of warm water, one teaspoon of s alt and sugar. Pour into a bowl in which we will knead the dough. Add two tablespoons of olive oil to it. Sift 200 grams of flour into a separate container. Mix it with a teaspoon of dry yeast. Gradually add the dry mass to the liquid. We knead the dough. It will be too soft, like dumplings. Cover it with a towel and leave for half an hour in a warm place. During this time, the yeast will “fit”, the dough will increase in volume and become more elastic. We crush it, coat it with olive oil. Leave in a warm place for another 20 minutes. The dough will expand even more. We roll it out not very thinly, forming a pizza measuring 30 centimeters in diameter. Bake it at 180 degrees for about 25 minutes.