pizza catastrophe

made pizza from scratch for the first time today. regular crust (neapolitan? not sicilian or deep dish, anyway), spinach, tomato, pepperoni, mozz, garlic butter for sauce

this is my dough recipe:
* 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
* 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
* 2 cups bread flour
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 teaspoons white sugar


DIRECTIONS

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups bread flour, olive oil, salt, white sugar and the yeast mixture; stir well to combine. Beat well until a stiff dough has formed. Cover and rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes.

after 30 minutes, the dough was still soupy. so i added more flour, and it wasn't pizza dough anymore. tore too easy, wouldn't stretch at all, just generally shitty

so i made garlic knots out of it. they came out ok.

round two with the same recipe, same results. i'm beating them with an electric beater. it does not turn to dough when im beating it, even on the highest speed



wtf am i doing wrong, and do you have a better recipe?


pics are coming

you need about 3 1/4 cups flour, do this though

use two packages of yeast, with one of them mix it with 1 cup warm water and 3/4 cup flour, mix well and let it sit on the counter for several hours (like make it the morning you want to make pizza) this is a "pooling" typically it's not done with any yeast at all and sits for 3-5 days before it begins to generate yeast on it's own.

when you go to make your dough, mix one package active yeast with a cup of water, add your lfour and the pooling from before, and salt. A little oil but no water

mix it thoroughly, until it beings to cling to your dough hook. if it's too dry, add a little splash of water, too wet, add a little flour--it can be very wet though, it will work itself out when it proofs

divide it into two balls and roll them

set it in a bowl with some olive oil covered for at least one hour to allow it to proof.

each dough ball will make a 14" pizza that's a "normal" style crust. it will be a little on the thick size so you can stretch it a little more to thin it out, or just trim the ball down.

I'll post a thread (with) pics on this since I just did it not too long ago.

it's pretty consistent so far and seems to make a good dough for me.

awesome

i read your pizza thread, but it said something about a "starter" and didn't have a whole dough recipe

i'm going to post the pizza i made, and eat it no matter how it tastes. will let you know though, and thanks :D

Buy dough balls from a pizza joint like I did. Then you just take a rolling pin and spread it out. I bought two large dough balls for $6. I tried tossing them by hand and they ripped, I don't know how the pizza joints do it. You'll also need corn meal on the bottom of the crust, otherwise it will have a plain taste.

Or you can watch a few YouTube videos to pick up some tips like this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKtsMfmQ_0s

i jsut got a package of Rapid rise yeast and some flour. I plan on trying a pizza dough and some loafs of bread.

I wanted to start right now but going through all my drawers i notice i have no thermometer...WTFZORS. So now im gonna have to wait till i get one. I worry about the water temp and it being too hot and killing the yeast.

i made the same recipe as my op, but used a wooden spoon instead of the beaters this time

it made good dough. i didn't make pizza, i made garlic knots and cinnamon sticks. i'll make a few more batches of dough for practice, then make a pizza out of it

first batch of knots i made came out piss-poorly. second batch i cooked at 475 for 8 or 10 minutes, came out perfect.
cinnamon sticks was just a half fistful of brown and white sugar mixed with a half stick of melted butter sprinkled on the dough and baked at 400 for 10 minutes. came out delicious

the great pizza disaster of 09 was my first attempt at making any sort of bread, and my second try came out like real food.

don't use beaters to make dough. use either a mixer with a dough hook or your hands.

point taken