Bread Machine Pizza Dough Recipe - Mom On Timeout (2024)

FAQs

How long should dough sit out before making pizza? ›

When you're going to use the refrigerated dough, take it out of the fridge at least 1 hour before you're planning to bake pizza, to let it come to room temperature. You can now use it just like any room temperature fermented pizza dough. Take the dough out from the fridge at least 1 hour prior to making the pizza.

If you don't proof the dough then you will get a crust which has very little rise and small air pockets. Some dough are like this though – think of flat bread and other unleavened bread which contains no yeast. The pizza will be quite dense and chewy if you make the crust thick.

“A few days' rise is fine and will enhance the taste of the crust, but any more than three days and the yeast will start to eat up all the sugar in the dough and convert it into alcohol, which will adversely affect crust flavor,” Schwartz said. Over-proofing is another consequence of resting your dough for too long.

Tips For Making Pizza Dough

Plan on at least 1 1/2 hours of rise time before shaping, topping, and baking. Get your oven as hot as it will go — at least 500°F. Keep the toppings basic.

Pizza dough that has been left to rise for too long, or has been over-proofed, can potentially collapse. The gluten becomes overly relaxed, and the end product will be gummy or crumbly instead of crisp and fluffy.

If a recipe calls for proofing bread dough overnight in the refrigerator, it can be proofed on the counter at a warmer temperature for a shorter period. Rather than placing the dough in the refrigerator overnight, leave it covered on the counter for 1 to 4 hours until it's ready to bake.

The minimum amount of required proofing time is 24 hours. A 48-hour proof is a better option, and a 72-hour proof is ideal. Since yeast is a living organism, dough balls are good for about five days from the time you pull them out of the freezer until the yeast is spent and compromises dough proofing and rise.

With pizza fermentation, you can create a pizza dough with the ideal texture and flavor with minimal effort. By double fermenting pizza dough, you are allowing it to rest twice. This process helps the yeast react better with the other ingredients in the dough and helps it rise correctly.

The short answer is – cover it to prevent it from drying out. And there is no good reason not to cover. But of course, there are things to consider. We all know to cover our dough so that it does not develop a dry skin on its surface which can give it an unpleasant look and texture.

Too little yeast and your dough won't rise enough, and the pizza base will taste bland. Use too much yeast and your dough may over-ferment. Tell-tale signs are your dough expanding too much or tasting and smelling a bit sour, with an almost alcoholic aftertaste (the yeast produces alcohol as it ferments).

What temperature should pizza dough rise at? ›

Nail the sweet spot — warm enough to rise at a decent rate, yet cool enough to develop flavor — and you're golden. Studies have shown that the optimum temperature for yeast to grow and flavor to develop is 75°F to 78°F. (Interested in the science behind the data?

Bring your dough to room temperature.

Gluten, the protein that makes pizza dough chewy, is tighter in cold conditions like the fridge, which is why cold pizza dough will stretch out and snap back just like a rubber band.

It's best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance, and 3 or 4 days is even better. You can shape the dough into any shape you prefer – circle, square, oblong. This recipe will make one 14-inch thin crust pizza. You can cut the dough in half and make two personal pizzas if you prefer.

5. Turn on the oven light: This helps bring a bit more warmth to the inside of the oven. 6. Close the oven door: Close the door of the oven and watch as your dough doubles in size in about 20 to 25 minutes depending on how dense and bulky your dough is.