What makes pizza crust chewy

A common way to incorporate the yeast into pizza dough is to add it into the water containing the salt and sugar. This is not a recommended practice as it can lead to damaged yeast, resulting in inconsistent yeast performance.

What this means is that the salt and sugar, under certain circumstances, could pull moisture — including essential enzymes and amino acids — out of the live yeast calls. This can lead to soft dough conditions, as well as less-than-ideal fermentation characteristics. To avoid this, we simply recommend that the salt and sugar never be allowed to come into direct contact with each other, even when in a solution. This is recommended for all kinds of yeast, not just compressed yeast.

Just crumble it a little and add it right on top of the flour and it will get mixed into the dough just fine. I promise. With all of this said, there is one small exception that you do need to be aware of.

When using a vertical cutter mixer VCM , the dough mixing times are so short that it can be difficult to get the yeast thoroughly dispersed throughout the dough without a little help. This help comes in the form of adding the yeast as a suspension. Put the yeast into a bowl containing a portion of the dough water, then add the yeast.

Next, use a hand whisk to stir the yeast until it is completely suspended, then add it right on top of the flour in the mixing bowl. Cook until the top of the dough browns, and the cheese and other toppings are evenly browned. In general, you're going to be unable to reproduce pizzaria crust at home oven temperatures. They are most likely baking their pizza at between F and F for only a few minutes, which produces a crust texture you can't achieve at F or even F.

This is the reason so many people are trying things like turning backyard grills into ad-hoc pizza ovens. You also might want to consider cultivating a sourdough pizza crust, which will be chewier than one risen with commercial yeast.

I realize I'm coming into this rather late, however you may want to try adding molasses, instead of sugar, to the dough. It's what you put in the dough that will determine the end result. You need to develop the gluten in the flour to get a chewy consistency. Be sure to knead the dough until is smoothly stretches when you pull it apart. Another late answer here, but if you want that "raw" dumplingy layer under the sauce, and a crispy bottom, oil the pan unless you use a stone and use a sauce like that for spaghetti, instead of a thicker, pasty pizza sauce.

I find for me I get that layer and it's my favorite part. I usually stretch mine into an oiled pan, and bake 12 min exactly in a degree oven and I get crispy golden crust, soft fluffy chewy inner, and that dumpling like layer you're looking for. Nobody mentioned the flour, I use bread flour for pizza crust and add a bit of gluten too. The gluten and kneading help produce the chewy, elastic crust Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How do I get a chewy crust from homemade pizza dough? Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 11 months ago. Active 5 years, 11 months ago. Viewed 53k times. Any suggestions? Improve this question. You have the actual dough their using and you're having trouble cooking it? Or just reproducing it in whole? The last bit of your answer makes it sound like you have the actual dough.

As a bonus, I find the chilled dough is easier to work with! This pizza dough can be frozen for up to 3 months. To thaw, transfer the dough balls to a sheet pan and defrost in the refrigerator overnight. This is the easiest and most fool-proof method. Alternatively if you forget to thaw them overnight , you can also let them thaw at room temperature.

Note: this is my least favorite way to thaw the dough. It is easy to forget about the dough, and you risk over-proofing it. This artisan pizza dough can be halved, doubled, tripled— you name it. The recipe scales very easily, as long as you have a container that can accommodate the mass of dough. We have big eaters around here, so I typically assume 1 dough recipe will feed 2 people with some leftovers for the next day.

This artisan pizza dough will give you a billowy soft and chewy crust, blistered bubbles and a crispy bottom. It uses a high hydration and long fermentation time for maximum flavor. Mix flour and all but 1 tablespoon of the water in a large bowl until just combined, then cover and set aside for 30 minutes to rest. Sprinkle yeast over remaining warm water and set aside to hydrate. Sprinkle salt over the surface of the dough. Stir yeast mixture and pour over dough. Lightly wet your hand, reach under the dough, and pull about a fourth of it over the top.

Repeat until the center of the dough is covered. Then, using your thumb and fingers as pincers, squeeze and pinch off big chunks of dough.

Pinch through the dough five to six times, rotating the bowl as needed. Fold the dough over itself a few times. Repeat pinching and folding until the yeast, extra water and salt are fully incorporated and a shaggy dough is formed. Cover the bowl and lest rest about an hour. Fold the dough one time to develop the gluten.

Lightly wet your hand, reach underneath the dough and pull about a quarter of the dough up just until you feel resistance, then fold it over the center. Rotate the bowl and repeat this folding four to five times, or until the dough has tightened into a ball. Take the entire ball of dough and invert it into a clean, lightly greased bowl, so the seam is down and the top is smooth. Cover and let rise until doubled in volume, 5- 6 hours.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and cut in half. Working with one piece of dough at a time, shape into a ball as follows. Stretch out a quarter of the dough just until you feel resistance, then fold it back over the center.

Repeat stretching and folding the remaining three edges until the center is covered and a loose ball is formed. Turn the ball over so the seam is down and place it on an un-floured area. Cup your hands around the dough and gently pull it towards you, dragging the bottom along the counter to create a bit of tension. Rotate the ball 90 degrees and drag it a few inches towards you again.

Repeat rotating and gently dragging until the top of the dough tightens up and the ball is round. Transfer to a greased plate and repeat with remaining dough.

Lightly oil the tops, cover and let rest at room temperature for about an hour. Preheat oven at this time. If not using right away, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready for up to 2 days. Let oven heat up for at least 45 minutes. Generously flour a pizza peel and set aside. Alternatively, lightly grease a cast iron pan with olive oil and set aside. Place one dough ball on a floured surface and flatten the middle into a large disk, leaving a thick 1-inch lip.

Pick up the disk, and holding the thick edge, use gravity to gently shape the dough into a inch circle. Lay on prepared pizza peel and adjust shape into a circle, being careful not to squish the outer edge.

Alternatively, shape the dough to the size of your prepared cast iron pan, then place it inside. Add sauce and toppings to pizza dough, leaving the 1-inch perimeter empty. Slide pizza onto the hot steel and bake for 5 minutes. Turn on the broiler and broil for 2- 4 minutes, or until cheese is melted and crust is golden and blistered.

If using the cast iron pan, bake for 20 minutes and broil for the last few minutes to get spots of char. Repeat with remaining pizza dough and toppings. Keywords: artisan pizza dough. I literally never comment on recipes but this was too good not to.

My only difference was I was out of AP flour so had to substitute bread flour but was still perfect. Also i preheated a big cast iron skillet to and baked about 7 minutes. Hello, Did you happen to notice that when increasing recipe size the only measurements that increase are the metric?

Thank you for this recipe, I use it every week and love it! Sorry for the inconvenience there. This is the holy grail pizza dough recipe I have been looking for. I know it will get easier as I get used to making this more often. I used King Arthur organic bread flour. I also discovered that freezing this raw dough after the final rise and then thawing overnight in the fridge works just as well with no quality reduction.

It really does get easier once you get used to working with it. Freezing is a great idea!! This is an amazing pizza dough recipe , letting the flour mixture rest and adding the yeast bloom later made such an amazing crust came out beautiful light fluffy and airy and so very easy , The hardest part of this recipe is the long rise Still going to try though!

This is my current favourite recipe for making pizza! It was as bubbly and billowy as promised… so worth the wait. Also looked like I pulled it out of a wood oven post-broiling! Thank you so much for posting this and for the detailed instructions, Indi!!! I made it! My family loves it. Have you ever used this dough for calzones?

Would i need to make any modifications? This is the first at home pizza recipe that I felt compared to my favorite pizza places, thank you so much!!!! I bought a pizza stone to try this recipe.

The flavor and texture is amazing. I let it sit over night and it was so good. I did have trouble manipulating the dough. It would be great if you did a video showing how you shape it! It is a tricky dough to work with, but so worth it! It also just takes practice, so keep using that new stone! This looks amazing!!!!! Just made it today.

I want the video also……….. Light, air bubbles…….. Please make the video. I didnt understand the one fold and then the pinching chunks??. Made my day!! It was so good my husband said ……. Thank you. How long will the spare stay in the fridge? Indi, I made the dough for the second time today. Any idea what I did wrong??

Do you think it rose enough? This was an amazing recipe! One of my favorite pizza dough recipes yet. We love the chewy, bubbly, flavorful crust. Well worth the time and effort. Thank you! Question: if using from the fridge, do you bring to room temperature first or use cold? No need to bring to room temperature— just shape, top and bake! Made this last month and turned out great but was very wet. Pizza was awesome, crust was chewy and crispy like we live it.

Decided to make again today and was thrilled that you now have the video up. Makes it much easier to see how wet it should be. Best pizza crust ever! Of course!!

Yes, it is a super wet dough— it definitely takes some getting used to. Hi Indi—-I have searched for a dough that looks just like the one in your new video…and have finally found it! Your intstructions in the video were easy to follow and since I am a visual learner, made much more sense to my brain that just reading the instructions.

Question—If I want a bigger pizza than my stone provides, can I use an aluminum pizza pan to cook it on and not the stone? And I want to make it as close to your photo as I can.

What kind of mozzarella did you use? Just shape the dough on the aluminum pan, slide it in the oven, and add a few more minutes to the bake time! I used whole milk low-moisture shredded mozzarella. I hope that helps!! Absolutely the best pizza dough recipe I have ever made. The crust was chewy and crispy and perfect.