THE BEST No Knead Pizza Dough!
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 25 minutes plus 36 hours resting (ideally)
Cooking time: 8 minutes per pizza
Makes: 4x26cm/10inch pizzas
Note: start this at least 2 days before you want to eat your pizza
Makes 4 pizzas
- 500g/1.1lbs flour (all purpose, plain or bread) plus 75g/2.7ozs extra for dusting and rolling
- 1 teaspoon/3.5g/0.12oz instant dried yeast
- 350ml/11.8flozs. water
- 1.5 teaspoons/9g/0.3oz salt
- 1-2 tablespoons oil (optional, for crispy pizza)
- 4 tablespoons polenta (not finely ground) (optional, for crispy pizza)
Pizza Sauce
- I mix a 50/50 blend of my favourite pasta sauce and tomato paste. I use around 1/4 cup or 60ml/2ozs. sauce per pizza
Pizza Toppings:
- Lorraine: mozzarella, red onion slices, spicy salami, black olives, super hot chilli
- Mr NQN: mozzarella, 3 slices mortadella, onion, pistachio drizzle (25g/1oz roasted pistachios blended up and mixed with 1 tablespoon olive oil and a pinch of salt) and fresh basil
Step 1 - Dissolve the salt in the water. Mix the flour and yeast in a large bowl and then add the water and stir to combine with a silicon spatula (just stir until it comes together but make sure there aren't any clumps of flour).
Step 2 - Flour your hands with the extra flour. Scrape the dough mixture and shape into a ball with your floured hands and place back into the bowl. Cover and allow to prove at room temperature for 12-18 hours.
Step 3 - The next day flour your hands and punch down the dough and shape into a ball again and cut into quarters. Dust the quarters with a bit more flour and re-flour your hands and smooth the balls so that the dough is smooth on top. Place in four separate containers with lids. You can keep this in the fridge for up to 5 days and you can cook it from there. Allow for at least 24 hours for this second ferment. I mean you can bake it without this second ferment but you will get better results with this long, second ferment.
Step 4 - Take the boxes of pizza dough out of the fridge 2 hours before you want to bake it. Heat your oven to maximum heat (mine is 300C/572F). Get your metal pizza trays ready (instructions for pizza stone are at the end). Add cornmeal and oil (if you want it crispy) or just flour (if you want it soft) to the metal tray and flour your hands and stretch the dough out a little. Make the centre thinner, it should almost be translucent but don't try to get the whole thing to stretch all the way to the edge of the tray yet.
Step 5 - Rest the dough for 5 minutes and then gently stretch out with your floured fingertips to the edges making sure that there's enough cornmeal or flour underneath the pizza to stop it sticking to the tray. Spread with pizza sauce and add your toppings. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until toppings are cooked through.
If using a pizza stone and a pizza paddle: Place your pizza stone in the cold oven on the lowest rack (do not put a cold pizza stone in a hot oven as it may crack with an extreme temperature change) and preheat to 300C/572F. If you are making a thicker crust pizza, cook it at 200C/400F to give the crust time to cook through without burning toppings. Sprinkle a surface generously with cornmeal and stretch out your dough, resting it for 5 minutes if you need to (see instructions on stretching the dough in steps 4 and 5 above). Add your toppings. Use a pizza paddle to place in the oven on the pizza stone and cook until toppings are cooked through. It will take around 6-8 minutes or so depending on how many toppings you use. Do not cut your pizza on the stone.
There is also the option to stretch out the dough on a silpat if you don't have a pizza paddle because that will make the pizza easier to move to the oven and pizza stone (it's almost impossible to lift it onto the hot pizza stone without a pizza paddle). Parchment also works but it tends to blacken and burn. You should cook your pizzas at 240C/464F if you are using silpats or parchment.