The Best Way to Make Pizza From Scratch (Restaurant-Quality)

The key to success with pizza

is looking at it like it's bread.

Pizza is a flatbread.

Our dough is everything.

Each step of the process is so important,

from selecting the right flour

to managing the temperatures of all of our ingredients

and managing fermentation,

which is what makes bread so incredibly wonderful.

[sparse percussive music]

You can buy store-bought dough, but this is better.

The overall quality of your pizza

is determined by the dough.

This dough takes a few days to make,

so you really need to plan ahead.

Before we start making pizza,

we actually have to do a little bit of math.

The warmer our dough is, the faster it's gonna rise.

The colder it is, the slower it's gonna rise.

By doing the temperature calculation,

you'll be guaranteed success

and predictable, reliable results.

So if you don't wanna do the temperature calculation,

just use a water temperature between 60 and 70 degrees.

We want our dough to start fermentation at 80 degrees.

That's our desired dough temperature.

Multiply that by three.

From that 240, we're gonna subtract

the temperature of our room, which is 67.

Subtract the temperature of the flour,

which should be about room temperature.

Then we're gonna subtract out the amount of heat

generated through friction of mixing.

If you're mixing by hand, you can skip this altogether.

Most mixers generate about 40 degrees of friction.

So 65 degrees is our water temperature.

Now, if I use exactly 65-degree water today in this room,

our dough is gonna finish mixing at exactly 80 degrees,

and so it'll begin fermentation at the right temperature.

65 degrees.

I've spent years testing this recipe.

It works.

We're using 660 grams of water,

and then we're gonna add an additional 100 grams

at the end of the mixing process.

We're using 1,000 grams

of King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour.

It's a great artisan bread flour.

We're ready to mix.

We're using a spiral dough mixer.

You can use any mixer that you have.

You can also do this recipe with a bowl and a spoon.

It's totally workable.

So we're using three grams of instant dry yeast.

And the great thing about instant dry yeast

is it can go right into the flour.

It doesn't need to be activated first.

We're gonna turn on the mixer to low speed,

and we're gonna mix until there's no dry bits of flour.

Now, depending on the type of mixer you use,

it could take three minutes to anywhere to six minutes.

Now we're going to shut the mixer off,

and we're gonna wait 20 minutes

because there's a lot happening in that dough right now.

Gluten is beginning to form naturally.

There's also an enzymatic reaction that's happening

where starch is being broken down

into simple sugars that the yeast can then consume.

If you don't have 20 minutes to wait, it's okay,

but the pizza might not have the level

of caramelization that we're looking for

once it's done baking.

It's these little techniques

that separate exceptional pizza from mediocre pizza.

We've waited 20 minutes to let our dough hydrate.

We have 20 grams of salt that we're gonna add.

Salt actually slows down the development of our dough.

That's why we delay the addition of it.

We're still gonna use that slow speed.

And we're gonna set a timer for four minutes.

[mixer whirring]

You can see the dough is super sticky.

There's no gluten.

It's just shaggy.

This is not finished.

[mixer whirring] [groovy upbeat music]

Okay, and we're gonna mix this

for two minutes on high speed.

What I'm looking for is this dough to be dull

or matte in appearance rather than shiny.

So you see, this has completely transformed.

We're gonna continue to mix it,

but this is what you should be able to do

at this stage of the mixing.

Should be able to pull it so thin that it's translucent

and you can see through it.

This is still tearing a little bit, which is perfect

'cause we're gonna continue to mix it for a little bit.

So you remember that water that we held back.

Now it's time to add it.

Turn the mixer on to that higher speed.

We're gonna slowly drizzle in the water.

The dough is pulling away from the bowl, which is good,

but we still have that shiny, glossy appearance.

We want to keep mixing until it goes back to matte,

dull-looking.

So this part takes about six to eight minutes,

depending on the day.

So now our dough is nicely developed.

It's still pretty sticky at this point,

but I can get it pretty translucent without it tearing.

Matte in appearance.

It's not glossy or shiny.

And now begins bulk fermentation.

We're gonna take a glass or stainless steel bowl.

We're just gonna lightly oil it.

And with my oiled fingers,

I'm going to scoop the dough out and into the bowl.

Our dough is fully mixed.

Put a clean kitchen towel on and let it sit for one hour.

You could see it's smooth, it's increased in volume,

and it's ready for this fold.

I'm digging my fingers under, grabbing the dough,

pulling it as far as it'll go,

and then folding it over itself.

Give the bowl a quarter turn and to do the same thing.

We're doing this to strengthen the dough a little bit more

and to equalize the temperature of the dough

and get it ready for its long night of rest

in the refrigerator.

Our dough's been refrigerated at least 12 hours

and up to 24 hours.

The dough is nice and bubbly.

It's risen by about 50%.

Lightly dust the top of the dough bowl.

So you see all these great bubbles?

Nice and gassy, jiggly.

The sign of good fermentation.

Cut the dough into 250-gram dough balls;

plus or minus five grams is all good.

It's very important to weigh your dough balls

because we wanna make sure every pizza

is exactly the same size.

This dough recipe makes seven 12-inch pizzas.

So now that we have our doughs portioned out,

make sure your work surface is nice and dry.

We're gonna take one end of the dough

and fold it into the center, and gently pat it.

Do that from the opposite side, and then from the sides,

pulling it without tearing it,

and then folding it right into the center.

Do the corners.

Make sure that the seams are very tight and closed.

If you don't close the seams,

when you stretch out the pizza dough,

you'll have holes in it.

The dough should definitely not stick to your fingers

or the board.

It's really important not to put too much flour on the dough

or the board because, as you're folding it,

you don't want to incorporate

any additional flour into the dough.

Gently pat.

We spend so much time building up these gases,

we wanna keep most of those gases on the inside.

Then we can do the sides and the corners.

Flip it over.

If it feels very sticky at this point,

you need to develop a little bit more strength in the dough.

Put it off to the side, wait about 15 minutes,

and then do the same process.

We've divided and rounded our dough balls.

Cover it with plastic wrap

so that the dough doesn't dry out.

We're gonna place it into the refrigerator

for at least 12 hours.

And that's day two.

[sparse percussive music]

When it comes to toppings,

that's where you get to let your creativity shine.

I love a Margherita pizza

'cause it's kind of the gold standard.

It's how you measure your pizza against everybody else's.

When it comes to our pizza sauce,

we're using organic tomatoes, Bianco DiNapoli.

Put the can of tomatoes into the food mill.

This is going to push the tomatoes through a plate.

It's gonna catch a lot of the skins

and seeds of these tomatoes, if there are any.

It's gonna lead to a very lovely texture.

The texture of your tomato sauce

is really determined by you.

For my pizza, I love this texture,

but if you like a chunky sauce, squeeze it with your hands.

It's all good.

It all boils down to personal preference.

Forward, and then a little bit backwards,

and then keep going.

Don't forget to scrape the bottom of the food mill.

Now, just a pinch of salt.

That's it!

You'll feel like you want to do more to it,

but if you buy good tomatoes,

you don't have to do anything to them.

Let them shine.

Mozzarella cheese is one of the things about pizza

that we love so much.

Well, I'm tearing it into irregular pieces

that are approximately 3/4 to one-inch big.

There's actually a huge difference in the finished pizza

if you tear the mozzarella.

It actually melts and flows

a little bit better than if you use a knife.

Some smaller, some bigger.

It's all good.

Fresh basil.

We have all of our ingredients we need for the pizza.

It's time to move on to the bake.

[sparse percussive music]

So our oven's been preheating for about an hour

at the hottest setting with a pizza stone in the oven.

One of the biggest mistakes people make

when they're making their own pizza

is not preheating their oven long enough.

Turn it on to 500 or 550, as hot as your oven goes.

We also want to have either a pizza stone

or a pizza steel in the oven

when you're preheating the oven,

because we have to build heat into that pizza stone.

Pizza cooks from the top down, but also from the bottom up.

And we need enough heat

to get the bottom of our pizza nice and crispy.

We took our dough out of the refrigerator about an hour ago

to come to room temperature.

We're gonna use this semolina to dust our pizza peel.

It's nice and coarse.

The dough should slide right off.

Flour the top of the pizza dough ball,

and we're gonna flour the bottom.

Start at 10 and two, press down and out.

There's any big bubbles you can definitely pop.

So we're about 10 inches, which is great.

Pick it up on the back of our hands

and just shake a little bit,

and that's gonna get all that extra flour off.

I'm also feeling for any moisture.

If there's any moisture, I put it back down into the flour

and then pick it back up.

It's nice and dry.

Then we move the pizza dough to our pizza peel.

We're using two ounces of the tomato sauce.

Less is more here.

And then we have our mozzarella,

tiny drizzle of extra virgin olive oil,

and just a few grains of some coarse salt.

I love that pop of salinity in every few bites.

I'm gonna dry my hands to get all that moisture off.

And then I'm gonna gently re-stretch the pizza to 12 inches.

A quick little shake

to make sure that it's not sticking at all.

We're gonna open the oven door quickly.

We're gonna carefully slide the pizza onto the pizza stone

and then quickly close the oven door.

Now we're gonna set a timer for four minutes,

and we'll check the pizza at that point.

Really important that you don't open the oven door.

The oven temperature's just gonna drop,

and your pizza will not bake properly.

Oven spring happens in the first minute or so in the oven.

It's the rapid activity of yeast

and the water in the dough turning to steam,

making it rise before our eyes.

It's been four minutes,

so we're gonna quickly open the oven door,

spin the pizza 180 degrees, and then close the oven door.

The front of the oven is always just a little bit colder

than the back of the oven,

so in order for the pizza to bake properly,

we really need to give it a spin.

First pizza of the day is always the test.

We're testing out the oven; we're testing out our dough.

We're testing out how well the cheese is melting.

Every day, these things are gonna be

just a little bit different.

And that's okay.

We just make adjustments after the first pie.

And you can see the bottom of the crust is pretty pale.

We don't like that, no good.

So we're gonna make one more pizza.

Our oven temperature could be a little bit hotter,

so we're gonna give it a couple minutes to recharge

and regenerate the heat in that stone.

I also flipped on the broiler,

and that should get the bottom of the crust

a little bit more caramelization.

We bake five or six pizzas every day

before any guests even arrive at the restaurant.

Just to calibrate how much cheese we're adding,

the bake time, get the oven ready.

It's just part of the process.

[groovy upbeat music]

There we go.

There's some caramelization.

Basil, olive oil.

[pizza slicer slams] [pizza crunching]

You hear that?

You hear that crispiness.

[pizza crunching]

Uh-huh.

And that is a pizza.

[pizza crunching]

It's light.

It's airy.

Crispy.

Flavors of fermentation, the cheese is melted beautifully.

Sauce is bright but sweet.

We're looking for an eggshell-like outer crust.

And then inside, we want big open holes

separated by thin cell walls.

With a few simple techniques, lots of patience,

and practice, you can make great pizza in your home oven.

That's perfect.

[munching] I'll eat that every day.