Looking for tips on how to cook the perfect pizza? Then you have found the right place. Below you can take part in our best tips and advice to succeed with the pizza dough - every time.
Quick, tasty and easy pizza dough? So you do!
Regardless of whether you buy ready-made pizza dough in a store, pick up the dough at your nearest pizzeria, or if you are going to cook the pizza from scratch, there are certain things you should consider before you get started. Namely, there are a number of different pizza doughs that have different conditions and degrees of difficulty. What differentiates the dough can be, for example, fermentation time and the number of ingredients. So, if you're going to make your pizza dough from scratch, do your research first.
Tips on how to make a good and quick pizza dough:
This is the dough for those of you who have a pizza feeling and don't want to wait! If you have a machine, you can use this to save time, instead of kneading by hand. With a dough mixer or baking machine you save a lot of time. If you don't have one, it is of course fine to mix and knead by hand.
- Heat water and milk to finger warm. Then dissolve the yeast in the liquid.
- Pour the flour into a dough mixer if you have one. Pour in the yeast liquid and start your baking machine.
- Start slowly for about 5 minutes.
- Pour in salt and olive oil and run the machine for another 5 minutes.
- Afterwards, it can be good to feel the dough, it should not feel sticky and stick to your fingers. Then a little more flour is required.
- A good tip is to work a little bit at a time with the flour rather than taking too much from the beginning.
- Run the dough for about 15 minutes in a machine. If you are kneading by hand, it is important to feel when the dough is ready. A finished dough should be firm and flexible but slightly sticky to the hands.
- When the dough feels firm enough, put it in a spacious bowl with a little flour at the bottom and cover it with baking cloths.
- Let rise for at least 30 minutes, until at least double in size and if you press your finger into it, it should feel elastic.
- When it's time to bake pizza, pour the dough out onto a floured table and divide it into smaller pieces and form your pizza balls.
- Work out the room-temperature pizza dough, top and bake in the oven at high heat.
Tips and recipes for a really good Neapolitan pizza dough:
Are you in the mood to make a really good Neapolitan pizza dough? A really good pizza dough is not made in no time. It's hard to cheat on the perfect pizza dough, the dough needs time to rest to rise properly and develop lovely air bubbles.
Here are the tips that will help you make a good dough:
- The order is important! Start with water (it is important that it is cold water), add the salt and dissolve this in the water.
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Remember to measure in grams and not in dl, liters, etc. When baking, grams are the only measurement that is constant.
- Then put in flour, start with 10% of the flour, stir until smooth, this creates a barrier between yeast and salt which are not friends, then add the rest of the flour. Tip is to use TIPO 00 flour, but regular wheat flour also works well. If you use wheat flour, you should deduct 10% of the amount of water because wheat flour cannot bind as much water as TIPO 00.
- Knead the dough, 20 min by hand or 10 min in a machine into a large and lovely dough ball. An advantage of kneading by hand is that you can use the slap-and-fold technique. This technique allows the dough to quickly go from a sticky dough to an easy-to-work and professional dough. The slap-and-fold technique also builds up the gluten strength in the dough quickly.
- Pour little oil in a container and put in the dough ball. Cover the container with plastic wrap or even better, an airtight lid.
- Allow the dough to rise in the fridge for at least 48 hours, alternatively 72 hours for the very best results. The longer the dough is allowed to rise, the more air is formed in the dough, which creates a dough with a perfect consistency. Make sure to have 4-7 degrees in the fridge for best results.
- Take out the dough and divide it into the number of pizzas you measured for. Then form the parts into balls and leave at room temperature for at least 2 hours before cooking. To prevent the dough from drying out when it gets to room temperature, a tip is to put a damp baking cloth over it.
- Bake, but be especially careful with the edges. Do not flatten the dough at the far end to preserve the air bubbles there.
- Then top with any topping and sauce. (See our recipe for good tomato sauce below).
- When it comes to baking the Neapolitan pizza dough, it is important to bake it high and hot, preferably in a pizza oven, otherwise on pizza steel/pizza stone. Optimal is to have an oven that reaches 400-500 degrees - a really good pizza is cooked hot and for a short time.
- Try using a proper pizza shovel to help you quickly slide the pizza into the oven.
- Does your finished pizza have little dark spots on it? Do not worry! When you make a really good Neapolitan pizza, you want to have the so-called "leopard spots" - a receipt for a well-made pizza. You want to achieve a baked pizza base with a softness on the inside of the edge.
Don't have the time to make a really good Neapolitan pizza dough? Then of course it is fine to buy ready-made dough from your nearest store. There are both ready-made pizza kits with tomato sauce or fresh dough for sourdough pizza in the refrigerator. However, we recommend making the tomato sauce from scratch as it is both simple and incredibly tasty!
Quick and easy tomato sauce for the homemade pizza!
Cooking a quick tomato sauce really doesn't have to be difficult or take a particularly long time. You can actually make a really good tomato sauce for the homemade pizza with just a few ingredients in no time. The secret is to let the sauce boil down and reduce properly on the plate.
Some tips:
- Tip is to use whole peeled tomatoes from Italy - preferably San marzano tomatoes - or whole cherry tomatoes for a little extra sweetness in the sauce.
- A good olive oil can do the trick. Try using a finer olive oil and adding plenty of oil - it makes a difference, we promise!
- Use a good tomato puree in your sauce. Together with olive oil and garlic, this becomes a magically good base for your sauce.
- Garlic gives the tomato sauce a lot of flavor. Some like to have a lot of garlic in their tomato sauce and some don't. The choice is yours!
- Do you have some red wine left over from your last wine night? Pour a splash of wine into the sauce while it's cooking for extra tartness and flavor.
- A pinch of sugar reduces the bitterness of the tomatoes and helps you create a pizza dough with more delicious sweetness.
- Let the tomato sauce reduce properly. This is really a tip that makes a difference. A well-reduced tomato sauce is much tastier!
We hope this article makes you inspired and maybe a little pizza hungry…? Maybe you want to try making a really professional Neapolitan pizza or you just want to quickly throw together your own dough for the evening. Regardless of which path you choose to take in your pizza baking, we at Dorre wish you the best of luck!