New York Style Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

Volume	Grams	Ounces
1 cup cool water*	8.2 (8 3/16) ounces cool water*	232 grams cool water*
2 ¾ cups high gluten flour**	16 ounces high gluten flour**	453 grams high gluten flour**
1 tsp. salt	1 tsp. salt	1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar	1 tsp. sugar	1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. yeast	1 tsp. yeast	1 tsp. yeast
1 Tbsp. olive oil	1 Tbsp. olive oil	1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. of beaten egg	1 Tbsp. of beaten egg	1 Tbsp. of beaten egg
1 tsp. olive oil	1 tsp. olive oil	1 tsp. olive oil

(Tbsp = tablespoon | tsp = teaspoon)

* In the high heat of summer or with high humidity, water should be chilled, perhaps even with crushed ice.

**Our favorite flour for this purpose is All Trumps, but King Arthur Sir Lancelot or King Arthur Bread Flours are great substitutes.

Directions:

1. Pour water in a mixing bowl.  Add salt and sugar and 1 Tbsp. of olive oil. Add egg and yeast and mix thoroughly.
2. Add flour and mix 5 minutes.
3. Add remaining oil. Mix another 5 minutes.
4. Coat a work surface with a light coat of olive oil. Set the dough on the work surface and make two crossing relief cuts on the top. Let sit for 10 minutes before making dough balls.  For a pizza that’s easier to manage on the peal, make dough balls about the size of a baseball.

• COLD RISE METHOD – Dough balls should be placed in a container that is slightly coated with olive oil and covered.  The dough balls should also be very lightly rubbed with olive oil.  They should only contact the container on the bottom, not the sides.  Store them 24-36 hours in the refrigerator.  Remove from refrigerator 2-3 hours before cooking, keep covered, and warm to room temperature to roll out.
• WARM RISE METHOD – Lightly rub dough ball with olive oil and place in a container covered by a damp cloth for 2-3 hours before rolling out.

An excellent video for learning how to make dough balls using this recipe is here (start at 5:45): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju3MEV-dQ0A or for dough balls only http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxFf70__8ls.

For the best pizza, you will also want to get some certified San Marzano tomatoes for your sauce. The best place to go for instructions—better than a book—is Youtube. You can find crust recipes, sauce, etc.

Cooking:

1. Preheat oven to 550 with the pizza stones in the oven.  After the oven reaches temperature, continue preheating an additional 30-45 minutes.  This step is extremely important if you want good pizza.  Failing to preheat may cause your dough to stick to your Dough-Joe® pizza stone because the pizza stones are porous and the dough will permeate them.
2. Dip the dough in cornmeal or semolina flour or a combination of the two.  Stretch and slap the pizza dough into a round disk. Here is an excellent video showing this technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pb5Fi9t2Ds
3. Lightly flour the peel with cornmeal or semolina and slide the pizza dough onto the peel. Build your pizza by adding ingredients, jiggling   the peel frequently to make sure the pizza is not stuck.  See “Cheating” at bottom.

Important:

Lightly jiggle the peel just before going to the oven to make certain no pizza is sticking anywhere on the surface or your peel or it may be difficult to slide the pizza onto the pizza stone properly. To slide the pizza off, place the peel just above the back of the pizza stones at an angle and shake slightly to get the pizza to make contact with the back of the stones and then allow it to slide onto the baking stones. This takes practice to get the proper angle and speed but you will get good at it after a while. You may pull the oven rack out of the oven to make it easier. After cooking, removing from the oven is easy because you will then have a hard crust.

Cheating: If you just aren’t any good at sliding a fully loaded pizza off of a peel and onto pizza stones, you may precook your crust to give it added stiffness and maneuverability.  Place it on the peel and slide onto the pizza stones with no ingredients.  Be VERY CAREFUL doing this because when dough is the only thing on extremely hot baking stones in an oven heated to 550 degrees, the dough will burn quickly.  You should need no more than a minute or two to properly stiffen the dough.  Also, remember that if you preheat the dough, the dough may look fully cooked before the ingredients are fully cooked.  This too takes practice so learn as you go.

Watch:

GOOD LUCK!

[ilink url=”http://fallsculinary.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/NY_Style_Pizza_Dough.pdf” style=”download”]Download PDF[/ilink]