The first thing that makes a perfect homemade pizza is the pizza dough and besides the pizza sauce and cheese, everything else is less important. So, once you have learnt how to make the perfect pizza dough, you’ll be on your way to make the best homemade pizza.
Although making a good pizza dough is relatively easy, there are rules that must be followed in order to achieve your goal. Most people get one or more of these rules messed up and fail to make a good dough.
01 – Everything that comes in contact with the dough must be floured especially your hands. This will prevent it from sticking. The first thing to consider is the flour to make the dough with. There are many different varieties and it is very easy to use the wrong flour. For a pizza dough, the flour needs to be a strong flour of type zero-zero (Typo 0-0).
Generally, a good strong pizza flour that you can find at your local supermarket, will have a pizza picture on the packet and if they stock a few, the most expensive will be the best. On average, you can make about four pizzas out of one kilogram flour packet, and if you divide the difference per pizza, the extra cost is not really much (usually about 25 cents) which is worth it to have a better pizza dough.
Watch How To Make The Best Homemade Pizza Dough
02 – Activate the yeast with water and add sugar or honey so it can start to make the flour rise by creating air bubbles. In a small bowl, mix 5g of dry yeast with lukewarm water and a teaspoon of sugar, stir until the yeast and sugar are dissolved in the water and set aside for around five to ten minutes until you see bubbles starting to form on the surface.
03 – In a large bowl, add three hundred millilitres of lukewarm water and two teaspoons of salt and stir until the salt is completely dissolved. Add approximately one hundred grams of flour to the salted water and mix until you make a pancake like mixture. This will prevent the salt from contaminating the yeast. Yeast does not like salt.
04 – Add the yeast mixture to the flour and gradually incorporate the rest of the flour while stirring until you have an elastic doughball.
05 – Flour the work surface and press the dough ball. Keep sprinkling flour onto the dough and shape it for a couple of minutes. Flour the bottom of a large mixing bowl and smear a little olive oil on top of the doughball to prevent the pizza dough from forming a skin.
06 – Cover the bowl with a damp towel and set aside in a warm place for two to three hours until it doubles in size.
07 – After the pizza dough has doubled in size, it will become very elastic and full of air bubbles. You now need to knead the dough for approximately ten minutes to get all the air bubbles out. There are many ways to knead the pizza dough and an easy way is to press the dough as you roll it forward until it becomes elongated, then fold it onto itself and start rolling it again.
08 – Cut the pizza dough into two halves and sprinkle a little flour to shape them into 2 dough balls. Flour the bottom of a sealed food container and place the dough balls inside. Refrigerate for twenty four hours.
09 – Gently take out a pizza dough ball and place onto a floured work surface with flour and semolina and start to shape the dough into a pizza base while stretching it.
Semolina are coarse flour balls that help the dough slide. Start by pressing the pizza dough down about 15mm / 1 inch from the outside to form the crust.
Turn the dough round as you stretch it by placing one hand on the inside of the crust and pull in opposite directions using your thumb and fingers of your other hand (watch the video). Be mindful not to have a see-through dough because you may end up having a hole in the dough. Flip the dough over and stretch the other side.
When you finish stretching your pizza dough you will have a perfect pizza base.
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