Pizza Dough Recipe

This is a slow rising dough, but is more than worth the time required.

Use a scale!
Now that you have a scale, 720ml of water weighs exactly 720g (much easier than using a measuring cup)
Make the water about 70°F. Add the the water, sugar & yeast to the dough mixer bowl and whisk (by hand) until dissolved. Let sit for 10 minutes.
Put the dough hook on the mixer, add about half the flour and start the mixer on slow.
Once the ingredients have been mixed, add the salt. You need to add the salt after the yeast/water has been mixed into the dough, since the salt retards the action of the yeast.
Increase speed to medium
Adding Flour:
Add the rest of the flour now.
Keep kneading for another 5 minutes then transfer to 4 Quart plastic bucket with a snap-on lid, and let sit at room temperature for a few hours to hydrate and rise
Folding: Take the dough out, grab it with both hands and pull it until it's about 2x the length it was, then fold it in half. Rotate 90° and repeat until you have done this 4 times.
Let rise again until double in bulk and repeat the folding step above.
Let rise overnight.
In the morning, repeat the folding step above.

Generously flour a plastic cutting board and dump all the dough on to it. Cut dough into four equal pieces.
Gently form each piece into a ball by pulling the sides underneath. Lightly dust with flour and place on a plastic cutting board. Cover the entire board and dough balls with plastic wrap and let rise for approximately another 4 hours until doubled again.
To use the dough, generously dust a pizza peel with cornmeal. Gently lift the dough off the cutting board with a bench knife or other wide scraper and lightly dust it in flour. Gently poke the edges with your fingers, then stretch it out into a disk and lay it on the dusted pizza peel.

Chlorine in tap water kills yeast and bottled water contains no chlorine. Because this recipe depends on a small amount of yeast and a slow rise, using chlorinated tap water will result in inconsistent results and great frustration, so use bottled. It doesn’t need to be imported, just non-chlorinated and not highly mineralized.
Makes (4) pizzas the same size as the peel and stone