How to Make a Great Pizza Crust - Tips and Tricks

The rolling pin is public enemy number one…when it come to making good pizza that is.

A great pizza crust is textured and bubbly and variable and lovely – use your rolling pin to smooth that baby down and you wind up with something about as interesting as wonder bread!

Now you may be wondering if you're ready for the twirling and tossing and spinning aerially of dough crusts – well, it doesn't matter – cause that's not really the best way to do it either!

In truth, the best way to make a pizza crust is to simply stretch it out and let gravity do the work, pulling the crust down without smashing all the little air pockets that are going to make things so tasty.

In fact, the 2 secrets to a great pizza crust are time and gentleness:

1. Letting a dough percolate slowly, over a day or more, so that the enzymes have ample opportunity to create a complex and delicious crust
2. Taking care to retain the bubbles and gasses in the crust dough, so that your pizza will have a bubbled and non uniform texture, and a much better taste

According to Reinhart, (with some of my own adaptations) who is my go-to-guy on all matters baked and bread...

The best way to make a pizza dough is to:

1. When your dough has finished rising, cut it into smaller rounds (the size of a single pizza, about 6 ounces of dough). Shape these little mounds of dough very gently into rounds. Stretch the dough gently and make every effort to retain every last bit of captured gas inside. You won’t keep it all, but if you are delicate, you can keep most of it. Very gently, press down on the top of each ball to flatten it slightly, into a sort of rounded disc shape.
2. Let these balls of dough rest for about half an hour
3. Cover your hands with a little flour
4. Toss a little flour on your counter, and pick up one of your dough discs. Use 2 fists to pick up the under side of the dough disk and to kind of stretch it out a bit. Then change your grip - hold the dough near the edge of the disc between your thumbs and fingers of each hand and let the weight of the dough stretch the disc downward.
5. As it starts to stretch, but before it would stretch so far as to tear, shuffle your fingers, moving the dough in a circular fashion through your fingers, pausing slightly after each move, to let the dough stretch downward onto a floured counter. Imagine you were holding a Frisbee vertically with your 2 hands palms downward, and just turning the Frisbee slowly through your hands.
6. After it has stretched out enough, drape it onto a floured pizza peel and add your toppings prior to tossing it in the oven.

OK…probably something you need to see to understand, so here is a video from America's pizza master, Chris Bianco, who shows how it's done. If you are looking for recipes for good pizza doughs, see the links below.