Follow Chris Bianco's recipe for pizza dough with yeast and you'll have the start of four 10-inch pizzas, ready to be adorned with your choice of toppings. If you don’t want to make four pizzas at a time, the dough balls can be wrapped well and refrigerated for up to eight hours or frozen for up to three weeks.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best flour for pizza crust?
Chris Bianco uses Hayden Flour Mills, which started in his restaurant, Pizzeria Bianco. The flour is made with Blue Beard Durum and White Sonora whole grains, which are freshly stone milled.
Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen
How to shape the dough
Hold the top edge of a piece of dough with both hands, allowing the bottom edge to touch the work surface, and carefully move your hands around the edges to form a round of dough. You have to find your own style, but I usually just cup my hand into a C shape, turn my hand knuckle side up, and drape the dough off it, allowing gravity to do its work, so it gently falls onto the floured table. Imagine you’re turning a wheel. Hold that dough aloft, allowing its weight to stretch it into a rough 10-inch round. Don’t put any pressure on it by pulling or stretching it, just let gravity do the job — you want that aeration and cragginess. Keep it moving, and it will start to relax— like we relax when we are on a sofa.
At this point, you’re ready to make a pizza. Lay the dough on a lightly floured pizza peel or inverted baking sheet. Gently press out the edges with your fingers. You will start to see some puffiness or bubbles now. Jerk the peel to make sure the dough is not sticking. If it is, lift the dough and dust the underside with a little flour (or, if no one is looking, blow under it very gently). Tuck and shape it until it’s a happy round.
Proofing the dough
In the Bianco Pizza Dough recipe, you proof the dough for three hours, then divide it into balls and let it proof for another hour before you bake it. It tastes good. No problems. But what happens if you proof it for seven hours? What if you let it go for 24 hours? It will be different, and that difference might be more to your taste than the basic dough. At three hours for the first proof, you will have a dough that will brown more quickly than a dough that's proofed for 14 hours, because the yeast will not have converted as many of the sugars. The longer the dough proofs, and the more sugars are converted, the more it will have that alcoholic smell of fermentation, and the more the sour flavors will develop. Many people love those flavors — like a good sourdough bread — but here I don't necessarily want too many of them, because I don't want them to dominate the flavors of the pizza toppings. That said, there is no wrong way to go here. Make the dough a few times, following the recipe, until you feel comfortable. Then start to play with it. Determine how long a proof you like.
Bear in mind that where you are in the world will also play its part. If you’re making the dough in Iceland, it's going to be different from making it in Phoenix. The climate is different, so it may need to proof for a little longer than three hours to start. Your water will be different, and it will affect the flavor of your dough. Never forget, we’re only dealing with four ingredients, and each one brings its own flavors and qualities to the pizza. So record the process as you go. Work with your sense of taste and your broader sensibility of the things you like. This basic dough recipe is only an early survey of a journey you get to finish yourself.
Make ahead
This recipe calls for at least 3 1/2 hours of proofing, with about a half hour of prep so you need to make the dough at least four hours before preparing your pizza, which could include time to preheat the oven and bake time. If you plan to refrigerate or freeze the dough for future use, count on thawing to room temperature before preparing pizza.
