No Knead Pizza Dough

                                        



No Knead recipes usually call for 18 hours of rest, plus another 2 to 3 hours after dough forms.  Not anymore!  I discovered this recipe on the Smitten Kitchen website and gave it a try today.  Worked perfectly.  This recipe makes two 12 inch round (or 9 x 13 inch rectangle) crusts.

What you need (knead???) to know:
There are three time options for this recipe which means whenever you get the idea to make your own pizza you can start the crust now!

Option 1:  Overnight Dough.  
Begin between 8 and 9 PM the evening before for dinner between 6 to 8 PM (approximately 22 hour dough)
Option 2:  All Day Dough.
Begin between 6 and 8 AM that day for dinner between 6 to 8 PM (approximately 12 hour dough)
Option 3:  Part-Day Dough:  (This is the one I made)
Begin around noon that day for dinner between 6 to 8 PM (approximately 6 hour dough)

This looks like a long complicated recipe but really it is:
1.  Mix all together in a large bowl
2.  Let it rest for 6 to 12 hours depending on which option you choose..
3.  Transfer from bowl to pizza pan, top with topping, and cook.
      Easy as 1, 2, 3 !

Before you start TIPS:

I wish I had noticed the weight of the flour before I began making the dough.  When I mixed the water into the dough, it seemed very dry, so I read through the instructions again and spotted this tip:

"Do keep in mind that 125 gram cups are light cups of flour — spoon-and-sweep or fluff-and-sweep style, and three cups packed more tightly (say, scoop-and-sweep) will indeed make the dough feel firmer. In the end, the dough should be mostly fine regardless, but I do feel that more damp doughs seem to have more of that crackly exterior/stretchy interior of dreamy pizza doughs. Hope that helps."
Of course I did the scoop and sweep and ended up with a dough that felt firm - too firm I thought (even though I didn't really know what I was doing), so added a bit more unmeasured water till it looked from this:

   from this... to this       

It went from very very dry to just a wee bit sticky.

Next time I will weight the flour and see if the measurements make a softer dough.



INGREDIENTS:

3 Cups (375 Grams)  All-Purpose Flour (apparently Bread Flour works too ... I used 1/2 All-Purpose
                                   and 1/2 Whole Wheat Flour and it worked just fine)

Slightly heaped 1/8, 1/4 or 1/2 Tsp Active Dry Yeast (for Overnight, All-Day or Part-Day
      respectively)

1-1/2 Tsp Sea or Kosher Salt (I used Kosher)

1-1/4 Cups Water (plus an additional TBSP or two if needed)

INSTRUCTIONS:

In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together with your hand.  Add the water and continue mixing with your hand until a dough forms.  The dough will be craggy and rough but if it feels excessively so, add another spoonful or two of water.  (I probably added 3 tablespoons full in total).  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (sorry to the environmentalists ... I'm sure you can find a substitute for this wrap) and keep at room temperature for approximately 22 (for Overnight dough), 12 (for All-Day dough) or 6 (for Part-Day dough) hours, or until the dough has more than doubled.  It takes longer in a chilly room and less in a very warm room.

After 6 hours, my dough looked like this:

                                                         

The recipe says to "prepare pizza stone and paddle sprinkling it with cornmeal.  You can also use any old baking sheet you have around, however, based on early commenters, the pizza tends to stick to these more, so I now recommend that you prepare it by very lightly, thinly coating it with olive oil or a non stick cooking spray before sprinkling it with cornmeal."
I used a round pizza pan and put parchment paper on the bottom and sprayed that with a bit of olive oil although I am not certain that was even necessary --- and no cornmeal.

Heat the oven to 500°F.  If using a pizza stone put it in the oven so it heats too.

Flour your counter well.  Scrape dough out of bowl onto floured counter.  (Dough should have changed to a very loose, soft, sticky and stretchy dough)  Flour the top of the dough and split it in half. Pat one half into a domed circle then lift the circle and insert your fist into the centre and let the dough stretch down on the sides.  Do the same with the second piece of dough or wrap it up and put it in the fridge* to use in the next couple of days.

                                                     

Spread this onto your baking sheet (I would think you would have to be very careful if using a hot pizza stone, being careful not to touch the stone when spreading it).  Use floured fingers to press and nudge the dough into your desire shape.

Add desired fixings.  I used pesto instead of tomato sauce, two kinds of cheeses - mozzarella and cheddar and the vegetables that needed eating in my fridge including spinach (which I sautéed slightly) and broccoli as well as others.  I tend to heap my pizzas which I did here:

                                                 

Drizzle with a bit of Olive Oil and pop in the oven for about 15 minutes.  I found at such a high oven temperature, if I had left it in any longer, the bottom would have burnt, so be careful.

Enjoy!

*Note:  If you are using refrigerated dough, you should return it to room temperature by leaving it on the counter covered with a damp cloth for 2 to 3 hours before using it.

Jim Layhey of New York perfected the no-knead bread.  Smitten Kitchen altered the recipe to make this no-knead pizza dough.  And I altered it a bit as well.  To see Jim's Youtube of bread making, click this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU