Two Day Pizza Dough

Over the years I've mixed and matched different recipes when it comes to making pizzas. Some pizza doughs have been tasty and others never again meet the scorching heat of a oven. This recipe is one I started using more recently because of the texture and taste. It takes a bit longer than most pizza dough recipes that can go raw ingredients to oven in under 2 hours but, it's worth it.

Yields: 6 10" pizzas
Total Time: 7-20 hours but ~50 minutes of active work.

Ingredients

Poolish

Bread flour: 1-2/3 c (220 g)
Water (70F): 1 c (220 g)
Instant yeast: Pinch (.25 g)

Final dough:

Bread flour: 7 c (1000 g)
Water (80F): 2-1/4 c (500 g)
Instant yeast: 1-1/4 tsp (4 g)
Salt: 4 tsp (26 g)
Cornmeal: 2 tsp (10 g)
Savory oil mix (Olive oil with your choice of spices): 2 tbsp (35 g)
Poolish: All of it.

Night Before making poolish:

Mix together the flour, water and pinch of yeast. This mixture will be very sticky. Store in a covered container with plastic wrap. I used a covered container but found within 3 hours the top popped off from the pressure inside. Let poolish sit at room temperature overnight (12-16 hours).

Next morning Making the final dough:

In the quantities above, this will take at least a 5-quart mixer to make the dough. 

Also although common sense use a dough hook when making it. For some reason when making this batch I used my mixing attachment instead of a dough hook.

Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix.

Mix on low speed for 4 minutes then medium speed for 2-3 minutes.

When done remove the dough and place it into non-stick cooking spray coated pan. Cover and let rest in a warm pace for 45 minutes. 

After the dough has rested for 45 minutes give it one stretch and fold as indicated in the video above from weekendbakery.com.

Cover again and let rest for another 45 minutes.

Divide dough evenly into 6 pieces (roughly 220 g each)

Then place on a sheet pan and cover with plastic then set in refrigerator to rest for another 4-6 hours.

I generally place the dough into plastic wrap and then place it in the freezer so it can be used at a later date. When using frozen dough let it warm up in the refrigerator overnight. Usually I let it sit for 24 hours in the refrigerator before using it.

Questions? Comments? Let me know below.

-Dan

Source: Baking Artisan Bread by Ciril Hitz