Keep your pizza dough on the counter where it belongs. Let it rest: A little shrinking is normal as you stretch your dough. If your pizza dough is quickly snapping back or difficult to stretch, your dough is too tight. Cover your dough with plastic wrap and let it sit for 10-15 minutes.
Standard pizza dough (with more yeast) can sit out on the counter for 2-4 hours, while a Neapolitan-style pizza dough (with less yeast) can be left out for up to 24 hours.
Pizza dough that has been left to rise for too long, or has been over-proofed, can potentially collapse. The gluten becomes overly relaxed, and the end product will be gummy or crumbly instead of crisp and fluffy.
Let rest at room temperature until the dough doubles in size, 1 to 2 hours. Or, if time is tight, let it rest at least 20 minutes before proceeding. Or refrigerate for several hours, deflating if necessary if it threatens to burst the plastic.
You can refrigerate the already rolled or stretched dough, but I would place it in the greased or parchment lined pan that you plan on baking it in and cover with plastic wrap. Don't refrigerate too long once the dough is in the pan, because it will release moisture and begin to stick to the bottom of the pan.
Pizza dough should proof in room temperature anywhere from 1 to 24-hours or even more. While cold-proofing a pizza dough can take anywhere from 24 to 72 hours.
Warming cold dough makes it easier to roll out or hand stretch pizza dough because of the protein in gluten that makes pizza dough chewy and stretchy. Additionally, if you have proofed pizza dough at room temperature for an hour or two, and turned it into a dough ball, you can skip this step.
The best place to let dough rise is a very warm place. On a warm day, your counter will probably do just fine. But if your kitchen is cold, your oven is actually a great place. Preheat oven to 200 degrees for 1-2 minutes to get it nice and toasty, then turn it off.
If the dough is under proofed, the indentation springs back really fast and does not stay. If the dough is over proofed, the indentation stays, the surface is sticky, and the structure may collapse.
If you don't let pizza dough rise, then it will not be able to trap the air bubbles that make for a light and airy crust. This will result in flat and dense bread that won't have much flavor or texture.
Bring the dough to room temperature.
If you're using frozen or refrigerated pizza dough, allow it to come to room temperature in a greased mixing bowl. Bringing the dough to room temperature before the shaping process makes it easier to stretch and less likely to tear.
Dough needs to be covered during the proof, but if there's a hole in your plastic wrap or you use a cloth that doesn't create a tight seal, air exposure will cause the top of your dough to become crusty and tough.
Why is my dough springing back into place when I try to form it into a pizza shape? If your dough is springing back into place when you try to stretch it out, this usually means that the gluten hasn't had enough time to develop. Gluten is what makes dough elastic and stretchy.
What to do if your pizza dough tears: If dough tears after you have already added toppings, a common Italian quick-fix is to quickly remove the toppings and then fold the dough in half like a calzone. Next, you place basil under the torn area, and then turn over and re-add toppings.
If your dough is tearing when you stretch it out, this usually means that there's not enough gluten in your dough. Pizza dough needs flour with a high protein content in order to develop gluten. Most styles of pizza call for 00 flour or strong white bread flour.
After the dough has rested, turn it out onto a very lightly floured work surface and knead it by hand about 20-30 times. (If your dough has the perfect consistency, you don't even need to flour the surface.)
Because the kneading will bring the ingredients together, over-kneading will tighten the gluten strands too much and mean that it won't give as much. This means that the dough won't prove as it should and therefore will not cook properly.
Although a single-rise dough will not have the same complex flavor as a double-rise dough, it will still be fluffy and light. So, does pizza dough have to rise twice? The answer is no, but rising the dough twice does produce a tastier crust.
Leave the dough to prove in a warm place for 60-90 minutes or cold prove in the fridge for 1-3 days. When cold proving, take the dough out 2 hours before starting to cook.
The longer the yeast has had to feast – ideally 24 to 48 hours – the lighter and more flavorful the pizza dough will be. It will also be easier to digest because the yeast has done the job of breaking down ingredients that your stomach would have otherwise had to handle.
Cook's Illustrated says to make cold water doughs for bread and pizza recipes because they benefit from long, slow, yeasted rises. The cold water maintains the gluten structure that traps gasses produced by the yeast and adds flavor to the bread.
Marble is preferred because it doesn't hold onto cold temperatures the same way stainless steel does, and there will be none of the reactions that concern some when stainless steel and food come into contact with each other.
Your dough will be shaggy and lumpy to begin with, but once you've kneaded it for a while it should be smooth and slightly tacky to touch. If your dough holds it shape and doesn't ooze or sag when you hold it up, that's another good sign that your dough is well kneaded.
Roll your dough into a ball and hold it in the air for a few seconds. If the dough remains a ball, it means that the gluten has been worked enough and is durable. If your dough flops between your fingers, it needs to be kneaded more.
What makes dough chewy? The chew in dough comes from the flour used to prepare it. Bread flour contains higher protein content than all-purpose flour which gives pizza crust its chew.