Pizza with Pieter…how to make the perfect pizza dough
What’s the secret to the perfect pizza?
In part one of our Pizza with Pieter series we sit down with Pieter Stadler, the designer of the outdoor oven you’ll find at some of Unyoked’s cabins to get the lowdown on how to get the flavourful, bubbly, crunchy pizza dough every time.
Want to follow step by step? Check out our video tutorial here.
Hi, I’m Pieter Stadler and I'm the designer of the outdoor oven you’ll find at some of Unyoked’s cabins.
I love pizza and helping to make it easier for everyone to make amazing pizza. Because let's face it, life is just so much better with a slice of hot, steamy, wood fired pizza.
In this article, I’m going to take you through the secrets to making the perfect pizza dough.
A little baker's secret, the longer the dough has the chance to ferment, the more flavorful and easier to digest it will become.
If you have the chance, make the dough 8-24 hours in advance. It’s a great thing to do the first afternoon / evening you arrive at the cabin.
If you only have one day to make and bake your pizza, don't worry. You can still make a delicious pizza. Just follow my steps below.
Tools and ingredients.
Our pizza dough has 4 ingredients—water, flour, salt and yeast.
You’ll also need a measuring cup, mixing bowls, the lids for the mixing bowls and a flexible spatula.
Mixing the ingredients
Pour 190ml of cold tap water into the bowl.
Now open your pizza dough kit and add 7g salt, 1g yeast and stir it for about 30 seconds.
And then put in all of the flour (292g).
Continue mixing for about 2-3 minutes.
Like a sponge, the flour will start soaking up all of the water. It will look very dry and flaky. Don't worry, just carry on.
Kneading
Rinse your hands to remove any sticky dough.
Now start mixing your dough.
You will see all the loose and flaky parts will start to come together and form one ball of dough.
Continue kneading and the dough will start to feel wet and sticky.
Don't stop, just a few more minutes. And that's it. The hard work is done.
Cover the dough with the lid or a tea towel and let it rest for 1-4 hours.
The science of (dough) rest
The reason we let the dough rest is so that the yeast has time to activate, making the dough rise. It will also really soak up all the water, making the dough less sticky later on.
If you want to bake your pizza today, skip the next chapter. But if you're going for that next level, long fermented, puffy, fluffy pizza dough, then get ready for some cold fermentation.
It's as easy as putting your dough into the refrigerator. The cold of the fridge will slow down the yeast activities while the enzymes will continue breaking down the sugar in the dough.
This will make the dough lighter to digest and the taste, oof, don't get me started about that taste. But before we do that, we are gonna take our dough, stretch it out, fold it in half. Take the other side, stretch it out, fold it in half. Repeat the process.
After a few times, you'll see you'll start to get a little bowl. We do this to strengthen the gluten. This is important if you wanna have a good rise on your crust during the bake.
Okay, now we're gonna put it into the bowl, cover it with a little bit of olive oil to prevent it from drying out and then close the lid. Place into the fridge for between 8 - 24 hours, depending on how much time you have.
Making the dough balls
Take the dough out of the fridge and now coat the two clean balls with a little bit of oil.
Dust your work surface with a little bit of semolina and then divide the dough into two parts.
Now like a little package, we're gonna wrap our dough.
Take the outside, fold it in. Take the other outside, fold it in.
Keep on doing this till you form a little ball. Pinch the seam together. Put the little ball seam side down into the bowl. Close to the lid and let the dough warm up. Ideally we want it to reach about 20-24°C, this usually takes between two and four hours.
If it’s cold outside, get that wood burner on and warm up the cabin to help the dough reach the right temperature.
Pieter’s tip: I know you're getting hungry, and it's very tempting to skip those last few hours. But if you want a beautiful puffy crust, a thin base and delicious fermented flavours, then please, please wait, because time is really the secret to amazing pizza.