Step by step to the perfect pizza

Have you ever wondered what to do when your pizza dough doesn’t want your way? Sticky dough, too hard a consistency, or dough that just seems unusable – all of these can be frustrating. But don’t worry! Even if your dough is sticky or difficult to work with, there are ways to salvage it and turn it into the perfect base for a fantastic pizza. In this article, I’ll show you how to get your pizza dough back on track.

The most common problems with pizza dough

Before we dive deeper into the solution, let’s look at common pizza dough problems:

• Dough too sticky: Your dough sticks to everything, you can hardly shape it and certainly not stretch it properly. This usually happens when there is too much water in the dough.
• Dough too hard: The dough feels stiff and difficult to work with. This often happens when there is too little water.
• Overproof or “dead” dough: The dough has risen too long or the gluten has lost its structure. It no longer stretches well and tears easily.

Step 1: Identify the problem

In our example it is a sticky dough. The mistake was made with hydration – meaning the ratio of water to flour wasn’t optimal. Instead of the desired 70% hydration, the dough was made with 85% hydration, which makes it very difficult to work with.

But don’t worry, with a little math and the right know-how you can still save that dough!

Step 2: Calculate and adjust hydration

Dough hydration is an important factor. It indicates how much water is contained in the dough in relation to the amount of flour. Here is the formula you can use to calculate and adjust hydration:

Hydration (%) = (amount of water (in grams) / amount of flour (in grams)) x 100

In our case, the dough was made with a hydration of 85%. However, the goal is to achieve 70% hydration to obtain an easy-to-work dough.

Calculation: How much flour is missing? (Adapted to 1kg flour)

• Current water quantity: Let’s say you used 1 kg of flour (1,000 grams) and 850 ml of water (850 grams) for your dough, which corresponds to 85% hydration.
• Target hydration: You want to reach 70% hydration.
• Calculate target water quantity: At 70% hydration you should use 700 grams of water:

Amount of water (in grams) = amount of flour x 0.70 = 1000 x 0.70 = 700 g water

This means you used 150 grams too much water. To get to 70% hydration, we add the missing amount of flour to make up the ratio.

Add missing flour

Since you used 150 grams too much water, you will need to add about 215 grams of flour to correct the ratio.

Additional flour = 150g water x (1000 / 700) = 215g flour

Step 3: Incorporate flour correctly

Now that you know how much flour to add, there is one important step to keep in mind: you can’t just add the flour into the dough all at once. Instead, you should incorporate it slowly so as not to overload the dough.

1. Place dough in food processor: Place the sticky dough in your food processor.
2. Add flour slowly: Start adding the missing flour in small portions. Turn the machine to low speed (level 1) and wait until the flour is fully incorporated before adding more.
3. Add water if the dough is too hard: If you have the opposite problem (dough too hard), you can use the same procedure but add additional water to improve the consistency.

Step 4: Repair gluten structure

If your dough is “dead,” meaning the yeast is no longer active and the gluten structure is damaged, there is a solution for that too. You can add fresh yeast and a little more salt to strengthen the structure again:

• Add yeast: Add about 2-3 grams of fresh yeast or 1 gram of dry yeast dissolved in a little water.
• Increase salt: Increase the salt content by about 2% to firm the gluten structure.

Step 5: Let the dough rest

Once the flour and water are fully integrated, let the dough rest for about 10-15 minutes. During this time the dough will relax and you will be able to divide it into portions more easily. Make small balls of dough and let them rise at room temperature for about 4 hours.

Step 6: Bake the perfect pizza

The dough is now made and ready to be made into a great pizza. You can now stretch and cover it. In the video, a special pizza was prepared with chickpea cream and crispy guanciale. The dough was perfect: light, airy and crispy at the same time.

Conclusion: No dough is wasted!

Even if your dough doesn’t seem perfect at first, there are many ways to salvage it. With the right calculations and a little patience, you can ensure that you always have the perfect base for your pizza. Try these tips and let us know how it worked for you!