Heavenly Thin Crust Pizza Dough

  You absolutely cannot buy a store bought pizza crust or dough that will ever taste as good or hold a candle to the texture of a homemade pizza dough. It's that simple.

  I am a lover of thin and thick crust pizza. To me you cannot compare them, they are 2 totally different beasts. And I like the extreme in both cases. I like my thin crust pizzas, super thin and crispy and I like my thick crust to be thick, fluffy and a meal in itself. This is a fabulously easy recipe for a perfect thin crust pizza dough. Comes out the same every time. (Made it about 15 times now) It makes about 6 nine-inch pizzas. So you can make the recipe, keep as many dough balls as you like for dinner and freeze the rest for later! I make 2 at a time and it easily feeds 4 people for dinner.

 I highly suggest making it the day before if you can think ahead, but you can easily make it a few hours before dinner, just give it time to rest. You will not be able to get over the texture of this dough! It is like butter! If you have ever bought raw pizza dough from a store (like Trader Joes, etc) which I have many times before I starting making this recipe, you will notice a distinct difference in performance. Store bought dough has so much elasticity that it can sometimes be a bit of a pain to stretch out without it constantly retracting to a smaller size. I hate that! Then I get stuck with uneven, semi-thick dough and it never bakes with a good crisp on the bottom. Not into it anymore, people!

  When you pick up the dough from this recipe, it will fall in every direction and stretch with such ease that you actually have to move fast! It will streeeeeeeeetch until it's thinner than paper. But it gives amazing results. :) Top it how you like. I find with thin crust that you don't want to go too crazy on the sauce. It can make it soggy or lose the crust entirely. Great tossed on the grill too!!

 Click HERE for some of my inspiration pizzas!

 HEAVENLY THIN CRUST PIZZA DOUGH (makes 6 six ounce pizza dough balls)

4 1/2 cups (20.25 oz) unbleached high-gluten, bread, or all-purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 (.44 oz) tsp salt
1 tsp (.11oz) instant yeast
1 3/4 cups (14 oz) ice cold water
1/4 cup (2 oz) olive oil

Flour, semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting

  If using an electric mixer (recommended!): Stir together the flour, salt & yeast with a dough hook. (if doing it by hand, just use a large bowl and follow the basic directions and you may have rock hard arm muscles afterward from kneading it by hand, but that's not a bad thing!)

 Measure the ice cold water and oil.

Slowly add the liquid to the flour on low speed until completely incorporated. If you find flour on the sides of the bowl, just stop the machine and with a spatula or your hands scrape it more into the bowl so it can form the dough. Switch speed to med-high and let it knead itself for about 6 minutes. 

 When it's done, it will create a smooth, slightly sticky dough. The bowl should have pretty clean sides and the dough will gently stick to the bowl at the bottom.

  If for some reason your dough seems dry, add a sprinkle or two more oil or water. If it is super gooey, add a bit more flour. (It should be perfect though)

 I flour my hands and lightly flour a board and gently dump the dough on it. Next, get out your bench scraper or knife out and if you have it...a scale. (this just helps portion the dough evenly, but you can eyeball it if you don't have one. No biggie!)

Portion 6-7oz balls of dough

  With each ball, I spray a nice layer of cooking spray (or you can just use more olive oil) and slip each one into a ziploc baggy. 

 When you are done you can date them and put what you want to use in the fridge and let rest at least 4 hours before using and what you want to save for later, pop in the freezer. (up to 6 months). To defrost frozen dough: just stick in the fridge the night before. Just bring them to room temp before stretching (about 30-40min)

   When ready to make a pizza: just take the dough out of the fridge and let it sit about 30-40 min to warm it up a bit. (I stick mine near the oven because I preheat my oven for pizza for about 30 min to make sure it's smokin' hot anyways!)

 Lightly flour it (and your hands) and stretch it out to desired shape and size. Place on a cookie sheet or pizza stone that is lightly dusted with either flour, semolina flour or cornmeal. (Tip: I don't have a pizza stone that I like, so I use a sheet pan lined with non-stick foil and a sprinkle of one of those flours- whatever I have on hand. It never sticks and has a great crust!)

 Top with any toppings your heart desires! For inspiration check out a few of my pizzas here!

 

Enjoy!!