Same Day Pizza Dough

We use our Ooni pizza oven all the time, especially for company. Over the years I’ve experimented with several pizza dough recipes. This is an easy and consistent pizza dough that I keep coming back to. One of the reasons I like this recipe is that you can start the dough on the same day. Many doughs need to start the day before to ferment slowly, but sometimes I’m busy or out the evening before. This dough starts around 9am to make pizza in the evening.

The other easy factor with this dough is that is uses yeast instead of sourdough starter. Sourdough is delicious, but not everyone is nurturing a sourdough starter in their kitchen. Sourdough also requires some math with the timing.

This pizza dough is also delicious and has a good texture. One criteria for me is whether the dough keeps its shape when you stretch it out into a circle without shrinking or contracting. This one works perfectly. The dough is relaxed and has a good structure.

Note that we use a wood-burning Ooni pizza oven which gets up to about 900F. If you are using a kitchen oven at 500F, you will need to bake your pizza longer.

This dough uses 00 flour which is a finely ground flour used for pizza in Italy. You can find it most grocery stores nowadays.

Same Day Pizza Dough

This recipe makes 12 small pizzas, the amount we make for parties. Feel free to halve or increase the recipe.

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Ingredients

  

• 700 g water at 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit
• 30 g fine sea salt
• .6 g (or 2/3 of 1/4 teaspoon) instant dried yeast
• 1000 g 00 flour

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Instructions

 

Around 9am

• Use a digital scale to measure water at 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit in a large bowl. Add salt. Swish until dissolved.
• Add the yeast. Let rest a minute to hydrate, then swish until dissolved.
• Add 00 flour. Mix by hand, using your thumb and forefinger to pinch the dough, alternating with folding motions. Mix 1 minute. The target temperature is 80F.
• Cover the bowl with a cloth and let rise around 20 minutes.

20 minutes later

• Knead the dough on a floured board for a couple of minutes.
• Lightly oil your large bowl. Place the dough in the bowl. Cover well.
• Let rest ideally 2 hours, but 1.5 hours is okay in a pinch.

1.5 or 2 hours later

• Place the dough on the floured work surface. Use a knife or dough scraper to cut the dough into 12 even sections.
• Form the sections into medium-tight balls by turning the dough in on itself like folding socks. You are building surface tension.
• Arrange the dough on lightly floured baking sheets. Spread them out and leave space in between, only 6 balls per baking sheet.
• Lightly dust the tops of the balls with flour, then cover with plastic wrap.
• Let rest 6 hours.

To Make Pizza

• About 45 minutes before we start making pizza, we start heating the Ooni wood-burning oven. Prep all of your ingredients. Sprinkle flour (semolina, 00, or cornmeal) on a pizza peel. Prep a wide soup bowl with 1 cup of flour.
• Place one ball of dough on top of the flour in the small bowl. Flip the dough over so both sides are well-floured. Press your fingers in the center of the ball and stretch outwards, making the center thinner than the outer edge. Then I pull the dough in the air and stretch the dough, using gravity as I hold onto the outer edge. You may choose to stretch the dough on a board instead of in the air.
• Stretch the dough to a 12-inch circle and place it on the pizza peel. Make sure there is flour (semolina, 00, or cornmeal) under the dough on the peel.
• Spread a small amount of Neapolitan pizza sauce and lightly arrange the toppings.
• Gently slide the pizza off of the peel and into the Ooni oven. Bake in an Ooni for just a couple of minutes, rotating partway through baking.

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