Forming Pizza Crust
By:
Allrecipes Staff
Everyone loves pizza! It's as delicious to eat as it is fun to make.
Although making pizza is simple, there are few tricks that will help ease the process along.
1. We used the recipe for Jay's Signature Pizza Crust. Once the dough has been formed and allowed to rise, uncover the dough and punch it down.
2. This particular recipe makes a two pizza crusts or one very large crust, so there is quite a bit of dough to work with. If you would rather make individual pizza pies than one large pizza, portion the dough into as many round balls as you want pies. Some people prefer a more rustic look to their pizzas which does not require perfectly round dough balls. Once the portions have been formed, cover and let the dough sit for 5 to 10 minutes to allow the gluten to relax before rolling the dough out.
3. Flour the surface of your work area to keep the dough from sticking. While you don't need to use a rolling pin to roll the dough out, it will help maintain a consistent thickness. Another approach is to pound the dough down with your fist or palm of your hand--this is just a preliminary shaping, to form the dough ball into a disc.
4. Dust your hands with flour to keep the dough from sticking. Gently stretch the dough using the back of your floured hand, letting the weight of the dough pull the dough thinner. Use the backs of your fingers to push the dough out wider. Start in the middle of the dough with both hands close together, and slowly pull your hands apart, allowing the dough to glide above your hands. Turn the dough about 15 degrees on your hands and repeat this step until the dough is thinner, wider, and consistent throughout the entire circumference of the crust.
5. Try spinning the dough in the air. This is certainly not required, but it's a lot of fun! It also helps to make the dough more round, as the centrifugal force causes equal amounts of pressure to be thrown out in all directions, helping the crust to form into a perfectly round shape.
6. Cover a bread peel (a heavy square of cardboard will work well, or a rimless baking sheet) with either flour or corn meal. This flour layer is vital because it keeps the dough from sticking to the peel, which will allow you, with a quick motion, to push the pizza off of the peel, into the hot oven, and onto a baking or pizza stone. Place the dough on the peel. Complete any final forming of the shape.
7. Arrange whatever toppings desired onto the newly formed homemade crust.
See "Topping and Baking Pizza" for ideas, or these other related articles:
What's this?