If you are a Newbie to Making Pizza Dough

If anyone is interested in following this blog or trying to make their own pizzas at home, I will try to share what I have learned so far in trying to make a decent pizza.  It isn’t necessary to have a digital scale, but your results could be better if you have access to a digital scale.  This is especially important when weighing the flour and water.  A digital scale isn’t that expensive and I bought mine for about 30.00.  I first started out not using a digital scale and quickly learned if I want to produce a better pizza, a digital scale is very helpful.  A pizza stone is also very helpful, if you want to produce a NY style pie.  I will blog more about types pizza stones later.  You don’t need any kind of mixer, if you don’t have one.  I had mixed all of my pizza doughs at home by hand for a many months, until I bought a Kitchen Aid mixer.  Mixing dough by hand is fairly easy.  There are many kinds of yeast to use in pizza dough.  I mostly use IDY (instant dry yeast) in pizza doughs.  It can be found at your local grocery store.  When using ADY (active dry yeast), it is helpful if it is hydrated into warmer water before using it with the flour, but I haven’t always hydrated the ADY with water.  Basically I just mix the IDY into the flour, blend the flour (can have the salt added to the flour also) with water.  If I use oil (vegetable, olive oil, or other oils, usually they are saved until the last ingredient to be added.  First add salt and IDY  on separate sides on the flour, then add the water, continue mixing until dough is mixed together and looks kind of shaggy or somewhat like a cottage cheese appearance, then add the oil.  This will make the dough mixture a little sticky at first, but it will then come together after mixing for a little while.  Then form a ball.  Make sure to pinch the bottom of the dough ball together.  Failing to do this, can make the bottom of the crust have weak spots.  If you let your dough ball sit at room temperatures for a little while, the dough will become more relaxed.  At this point you can reball the dough ball and place it into the refrigerator for a day or longer, all depending how much yeast you have added to your dough.  When the dough ball has at least doubled in size, it can then be ready to make a pizza.  Another thing to look for in the dough ball is bubbles on the bottom of the container you stored the dough ball in.  Bubbles tell you how the dough is fermenting.  I usually use plastic food containesr at home, that you can see though, to monitor the dough.  Be sure to have a snap-on lid.  If you don’t use some kind of covered container, the dough ball can dry out. 

I will blog more later about opening a dough ball, flouring the peel, (used to slide the pizza skin into the oven) and using different rack positions and different temperatures in your oven).

Norma