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Hi Bold Bakers!
Any professional baker worth their salt has their own tried and tested Pizza Dough recipe that they carry with them from kitchen to kitchen. I am no different and I held my precious recipes close to my chest. You already know that I am passionate about bread baking, and now I and delighted to share my Best Ever Pizza Dough recipe with you.
So how can I call this Pizza Dough the Best Ever? It’s simple: this dough is mixed by hand without the need for a machine. It ferments overnight to give great flavor and texture and best of all the dough lasts up to 4 days in the fridge. In the end you get restaurant quality professional pizza. The results will be the BEST-EVER Pizza you make at home, I promise you that.
Now, even though I normally would be on the sweeter side of baking I do know a thing or two about making pizza. When I lived in San Francisco I turned the sitting room of the old Georgian townhouse I rented into an underground restaurant and fed my friends, friends of friends, and hungry strangers fresh pizzas from my rickety old gas oven! I called it “Knead to Know.” I only invited my friends so you would “knead to know” one of my friends to find out about it. (Get it?)
Those of you who follow my recipes will know that I swear by the “No Knead” technique for bread making. This method uses time to develop a dough, and time is equal to a deeply developed flavor and bubbly texture.
You can pretty much make any type of bread or yeasted dough using this method. Ever want to make soft Pretzels but are intimidated by the method? Here is my No-Knead Pretzel Recipe. They are incredibly easy to make and the results are some of the best soft Pretzels you will taste. I also have made No-Knead Brioche, No-Knead Cinnamon Raisin Bread and even No-Knead Cinnamon Rolls.
My recommendation for successful No-Knead Pizza Dough is read through my method and all of my tips. Print off the recipe and take notes, what temperature you used, how long you bake, etc. Basically what works for you and what doesn’t. This helps you perfect your dough and your skills.
Make sure to check out a few of my other favorite pizza flavors including Mushroom, Mascarpone & Egg, and Potato & Mint Pesto along with my 5-minute pizza sauce below.
And be sure to sign up HERE for my FREE Newsletter to get the latest Bigger Bolder Baking news including exclusive recipes!
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I know a thing or two about homemade pizza!
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Watch The Recipe Video!
No-Knead Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups (18oz/497g) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon dried yeast (I use instant)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 1/3 cups (10 1/2floz/ 298g) water ( at blood temperature)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- In a large bowl or a plastic container with a lid, add in the flour, salt and yeast. Do not add the yeast and salt directly on each other as this can deactivate the yeast.
- Mix all of your dry ingredients together well
- Mix the oil into the water.
- Pour the blood temperature water/oil mixture in all at once and stir with a wooden spoon or your hand, which is what I prefer so you can tell by the feel of the dough if you need more water early on. Adjust the water to your flour, do not over-wet it.
- Mix it until all of the flour is incorporated into the dough and is hydrated. You don’t want any lumps of flour left dry. You can see it will be a wet, saggy dough.
- With a spatula scrape the dough off the sides of the container to join the dough. Put the lid on the container tightly or cover your bowl with plastic wrap ensuring that no air gets into your dough as it rests. Air can cause the dough to form a skin which is not good for a dough.
- Allow the dough to sit at room temperature and ferment for about 12-18 hours at cool room temperature. Or you can proof it for about one hour to get it moving and refrigerate it until you wish to use it.
- After18 hours in a cool place, if you are not planning on baking off the dough you can refrigerate it. The dough can be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days at this stage and baked off any time. While in the fridge the flavor will deepen over that time, developing sourdough characteristics.
- The next day the dough will have more than doubled in size with lots of the bubbles on top. Also it will smell boozy and fermented. This is exactly what you want.
- Dust your hands and the surface of the dough with a little flour, just enough to prevent it from sticking to your hands. Gently turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Don’t knock out the air from the dough.
- Cut the dough into 4 pieces and using extra flour to handle if needed. If you are using it from the fridge this action will wake up the dough for you.
- Lightly knead each portion of dough just to form a ball. Allow the dough to rest on a floured board covered for 30 minutes. Your pizza dough is ready to use!
- On a flat baking tray or pizza peel, dust it with flour or semolina. With floured hands gently stretch your pizza dough to 10 inches. You can also use a rolling pin to stretch it out. If you find the dough is springing back and is hard to stretch then let it rest for 10 minutes on the board.
- Once you have gotten your desired thickness spread on your sauce and add your topping.
- Important note: Less is more. You don’t want to add too many heavy topping on your pizza otherwise you won’t be able to slide it off the baking tray onto the cast iron tray.
- Bake at 450oF (225oC) for roughly 10 minutes or until the base is crisp and golden brown
- Any dough that does not get used can be refrigerated or even frozen
- NOTE: As with all dough recipes, the amount of flour will vary depending on weather, brand of flour, etc. Use as much flour as you need to handle the dough, but keep in mind that the stickier the dough, the better the texture of your pizza crust will be.
I prepared this today for Christmas lunch and it was awesome! Thank you so much for the recipe. I brushed olive oil in the edges of the crust and used a parchment paper to transfer the pizza into the heated pan. It was really very easy to transfer with that! Turned out amazing!
Posted a photo of the first pizza my husband ever made. You challenged him to make a pizza and he accepted the challenge. He made the dough late last night. Made your 5 minute pizza sauce and two pizza’s for dinner. Dough for two more in our frig. Great crust and sauce. Thanks for challenging him! Now he is challenging our six married children. Fun family thing to do together even living in different states.
Hi Gemma,
The no knead pizza crust is fantastic. 4 out of 5 Ferguson’s agree (the 5th Ferguson didn’t get to have any). It was gobbled up to quick. Just curious if this recipe could be doubled in the same bowl or would it be more preferable to just make two batches?
Many Thanks for sharing,
Erin Malone-Ferguson
Using Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking pizza dough recipe which is the gold standard, I tried a new flour that has taken my pizza to new heights. The flour is Central Milling 00 pizza flour. It’s hard to find in stores but available on their website. I followed their recommendation to let the dough ferment in the fridge for about 3 days. The result was restaurant quality in texture (great crunch), flavor and appearance. My next adventure is to experiment with sour dough. Thank you again Gemma for a great go to pizza dough recipe.
Thank you for this recipe Genmma. We are a family of only two, can these doughs be frozen?
Hi Gemma! I just love your recipes. They’re always amazing. I have tried this pizza recipe once and they’re gorgeous. However, on my second try, I the dough was too wet and saggy. I don’t know what went wrong. Despite adding flour one too many times, it still wouldn’t improve. Can I still salvage them? Thanks for the help.
Hi Gemma,
We love this recipe! Our pizza turned out great.
One question we have is whether this can be prepared in a bread maker as is or if we would have to change the quantities of the ingredients.
Thanks,
Kim
Hi Gemma,
thank you for this pizza dough recipe. I’ve made it for launch today and it was awsome. My family loved it. Best dough recipe so far.
Greetings from Hungary
Can you tell what blood temperature water means ? Lukewarm ? Thanks
Thanks for the great receipt! Today I have done 4 pizza for my families 😍