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Pizza Dough Technique #5

Pizza Dough Technique #5 — a community recipe on Potlikkr.

Ingredients

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Method (preview)

1. 1

   You don't need to become apprenticed, you just need to let the dough rise again. After letting your pizza dough rise the first time, punch it down, then divide into however many pizzas you want to make from the batch. Form into round 'boules' being careful to maintain a nice skin (I form these by carefully pushing the dough up through the bottom until I'm satisfied with the shape), then COVER and let double in size. I find that an inverted bowl works fine, although you might want to try the floured cloth technique. When the dough has risen again, it will be gassy. DON'T roll it out. Use your fingers to poke it into an approximate round shape, deflating all the major gas bubbles. It's reasonably easy to then stretch the round disk with your knuckles, then to throw the slack dough with a spinning motion in the air, further stretching it and catching it on your bent knuckles, and yes, this is exactly how the 'experts' do it. It helps if you say, repeatedly, "Mamma mia, atsa spicy meatball!" for verisimilitude. It will take you approximately three times to become a veteran at this. Most people have problems with pizza dough because they 1) roll out the dough, squishing all the little bubbles that make good pizza and 2) try to work with freshly kneaded dough, instead of letting it rise and become slack.

2. 2

   It is also worth noting that it is better to have a less sticky dough. Pizza dough needs to have a higher flour/liquid ratio than many breads, and also benefits from high gluten, the higher the better, as long as it is thoroughly kneaded. You should be able to stretch good pizza dough so thin it's translucent, although you don't have to bake it that way.