Newbies introduction to learning NY style pizzas

In this post I will write some about making a NY style pizza.  When using formulas for a 16" pizza, they can usually be made into two 12" pizzas.  This should be kept in mind if you have a smaller pizza stone or want to make individual pies.  A dough recipe can also be cut in half to make dough for a 12" pizza.  In my opinion if you really want to taste a pie above what you are purchasing at you local pizzeria, you will find that pizzas made at home are better than what you can purchase.  It is all about the “magic” of pizza dough.  Usually regular pizzerias really aren’t that careful about their measurements of ingredients that go into pizza dough and usually don’t cold ferment their dough for very long.  Most chain pizzerias now have dough balls that are made at central locations and then trucked to their individual stores.  This is why I think that dough made at home makes a better pizza.  You can choose your ingredients and make a much fresher pizza.

If you decide to purchase a digital scale, make sure it has a zero function and can measure in metric units.  My digital scale can only measure to the gram, not parts of a gram. 

Yeast amounts for most NY style pizzas made in a home are around 0.25% to about 0.40%.  It all depends on the season of the year and what amount of time you want to cold ferment your pizza dough.  Use lower values of yeast if you make the pizza in the summer and higher amounts of yeast if you want to use the pizza dough sooner, or possibly in the winter, when ambient temperatures are colder.

This was a modified NY style pizza dough formula for pizzzzagirl on pizzamaking.com from Pete-zza It is fairly easy to follow.

Pizzzzagirl's 12-inch Lehmann NY Style Dough Recipe

100%, Bread flour, 7.15 oz. (202.03 g.), (1 1/2 c. plus 2 T. plus 5/8 t.)*
63%, Water (at around 100 degrees F), 4.50 oz. (127.65 g.), (1/2 c. plus 2 t.)
1%, Oil, 0.07 oz. (2.03 g.), (a bit less than 1/2 t.)
1.75%, Salt (table salt), 0.13 oz. (3.55 g.), (a bit over 5/8 t.)
0.40%, IDY (instant dry yeast), 0.03 oz. (0.81 g.), (a bit over 1/4 t.)
Total dough weight = 11.88 oz. (336.66 g.)
Thickness factor (TF) = 0.105

Measure out the flour by first stirring the flour in the flour container and then repeatedly lifting the flour from the flour container into the measuring cup(s) and leveling off the flour in the measuring cup(s) with a flat edge (this is the "Textbook" method)



TF, or thickness factor is how thick or thin you want to make your pizza.  A good range for making NY style is around 0.10.  It can go up or down, all depending on how thick or thin you want your NY style pizza to be.

I will post pictures of what dough balls should look like at various stages and also my first formula for the NY style Lehmann dough I made, when I first started making pizza, in future posts.

Norma