This Homemade Pizza Dough is super quick and easy to make. It's the perfect base for all your pizza creations!

You can't have a perfect pizza without a perfect crust. Lucky for you, I'm sharing the perfect recipe for homemade pizza dough! This recipe makes a thick and chewy crust, but you can easily make it thin and crispy depending on your flattening methods which I'll discuss more in the recipe below.

Homemade yeast doughs may be intimidating to some people, but trust me — it's super easy! Not only is it easy to make, but just like everything homemade, homemade pizza dough is a million times better than store-bought. Honestly, once you get the hang of making your own pizza dough, you'll be making more pizza's at home rather than ordering out.

So what ingredients go into a great pizza crust?

Water — The water should be around 110-115˚F. You don’t exactly need a thermometer for this, simply test the water by holding your hand/wrist under the tap. The water should be warm enough to keep your wrist there, it shouldn’t burn. If the water is too hot it will kill the yeast, preventing it from foaming up.

Yeast — Make sure your yeast is fresh. If you have to question it, I recommend buying a new package. Some recipes call for mixing the yeast and all of the other ingredients together, but I prefer to proof the yeast with the warm water and sugar. Doing this will allow you to see if your yeast is active or not. If it’s not, you can easily dump it out and try again with more water and a fresh new package of yeast.

Sugar — This is food for they yeast and helps it foam up.

Melted Butter — this adds a lot of flavour and makes our crust extra buttery!

Flour — I used unbleached all-purpose flour, but you can use bread flour or even whole wheat flour for a healthier version. Also, it's very important that you measure the flour correctly. I remember my first time trying to make pizza dough. I didn't measure the flour properly and my crust was pretty much the same texture as a cracker. To measure correctly, use a flour scoop or spoon to scoop and sprinkle the flour into your measuring cup. Fill the flour over the top of the measuring cup, then use the back of a butter knife to scrape off the excess flour.

Salt — this is what gives the crust flavour and keeps it from being bland.

Garlic Powder — this is optional, but a small amount of garlic powder will add a lot of flavour to the crust, making it as tasty as your delicious toppings!

Cornmeal — we sprinkle this on the bottom of the pizza pan or wherever you're baking your pizza on. This adds flavour to the crust and gives it a nice crispy texture.

Olive Oil — we brush some onto the rim of the crust before baking. This makes the crust nice and golden brown when baking.

How to make the perfect pizza dough

Here are the step-by-step guides on how to make this pizza dough. I've included the printable recipe below.

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, or in a large mixing bowl, combine the water, yeast and sugar. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes or until the yeast is foamy.

2. Once the yeast has risen, add the melted butter 3 and ½ cups of flour, salt and garlic powder and mix on low speed, or by hand using a wooden spoon until combined, about 1 minute. Increase your mixer speed to medium-low (2 on a kitchenaid) and knead the dough until it's smooth, elastic and starts to pull away from the sides, about 7-10 minutes. If not using a stand mixer, turn dough onto a floured surface and knead by hand. If the dough is too wet and sticky after 5 minutes of mixing, add additional flour 1 tablespoon at a time. Test your dough by poking it with your finger, if it bounces back it's ready.

3. Lightly grease a large bowl with cooking spray or olive oil. Remove the dough from mixing bowl and shape into a ball. Place into greased bowl and turn to coat it in the oil. Loosely cover with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1-1 and ½ hours.

4. Once dough has doubled in size, punch it down and turn it out onto a floured work space.

5. Divide it into 2 equal portions, each ball should weigh 396 grams.

6. At this point you can wrap the dough balls and refrigerate overnight or freeze until ready to use. To thaw out the dough, simply transfer it to the freezer overnight. Once it's thawed, remove from the refrigerator and allow it to sit for about 30 minutes to come to room temperature.

Don't worry, there's a tasty pizza recipe that uses this dough coming soon. This is just one of the base recipes that I want you all to learn. The next base recipe I'll be sharing is pizza sauce! You gotta learn the basics in order to achieve pizza greatness.

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The Perfect Homemade Pizza Dough

Name: The Perfect Homemade Pizza Dough
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 2
Ingredients: 1 and 1/4 cups warm water (110-115˚F); 1 package ( 2 and 1/4 teaspoon) active dry yeast; 1 Tbsp granulated sugar; 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted; 3 and 1/2 - 4 cups all purpose flour; 1 teaspoon salt; 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (optional); Cornmeal, for dusting the pan; Olive oil, for brushing

Yield: 2 (12-inch) pizzas

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

This Homemade Pizza Dough is super quick and easy to make. It's the perfect base for all your pizza creations!

Ingredients

1 and ¼ cups warm water (110-115˚F)
1 package ( 2 and ¼ teaspoon) active dry yeast
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
3 and ½ - 4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
Cornmeal, for dusting the pan
Olive oil, for brushing

Instructions

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, or in a large mixing bowl, combine the water, yeast and sugar. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes or until the yeast is foamy. Add the melted butter.

Add 3 and ½ cups of flour, salt and garlic powder to the yeast mixture and mix on low speed, or by hand using a wooden spoon until combined, about 1 minute.

Increase your mixer speed to medium-low (2 on a kitchenaid) and knead the dough until it's smooth, elastic and starts to pull away from the sides, about 7-10 minutes. If not using a stand mixer, turn dough onto a floured surface and knead by hand.

If the dough is too wet and sticky after 5 minutes of mixing, add additional flour 1 tablespoon at a time. Test your dough by poking it with your finger, if it bounces back it's ready.

Lightly grease a large bowl with cooking spray or olive oil. Remove the dough from mixing bowl and shape into a ball. Place into greased bowl and turn to coat it in the oil.

Loosely cover with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1-1 and ½ hours.

Once dough has doubled in size, punch it down and turn it out onto a floured work space. Divide it into 2 equal portions, each ball should weigh 396 grams. At this point you can wrap the dough balls and refrigerate overnight or freeze until ready to use. Thaw out frozen dough in the refrigerator overnight and proceed with remaining steps.

If using the dough right away, shape both halves into balls and place into two separate bowls. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Baking Instructions:

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F and allow to heat for at least 30 minutes. Grease a pizza pan with cooking spray and sprinkle with cornmeal. If you prefer a thin crust, roll out dough into a circle using a rolling pin. If you want a thicker crust, flatten and stretch on prepared pizza pan or hold the dough up on one side and quickly move your hands around the edges to stretch it out. Use your fingers to push up the edges to create a crust. Let dough rest for 10-15 minutes before topping.
Brush the crust with olive oil, top with your favourite toppings and bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until the edges of the crust are golden brown.
If you prefer a darker crust, move pan to the top rack and broil for 1-2 minutes. Slice and serve!

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Bon Appétit!

Love, Dedra ❤

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