Ooni – Making Pizza Dough:
Don’t stress this part, a lot of people go into great detail about measurements, ingredients and hydration percentages. Don’t worry about all that for now, just focus on one dough recipe and keep doing it until you are totally happy with it.
Dough Recipe Number 1: Ooni Dough Recipe
I have tried a lot of pizza doughs over the years and I tried a few of them with the Ooni; but the easiest recipe I have found so far is from Ooni themselves.
You can make the dough on the day but the taste and flexibility of the dough does improve if you leave it a couple of days. It’s hard to be so organised though and if you are in a rush making the dough on the day is fine. I use our Kitchenaid with a dough hook to knead the dough, makes it even easier!
The first few times you make it don’t cold prove it, just work on the measurements and techniques until you have a great dough.
This cook was with the basic Ooni dough recipe:
Dough Recipe Number 2: Ooni Dough Recipe – Cold Proved
Ok, it’s not a different recipe but the technique is slightly different. This time after the Rise/1st Prove ball the dough into balls and cold prove it for 1 to 3 days. Start with a day then the next time do two days and after that three days. See if you can taste a difference and which length of cold prove provides you with the dough you prefer the taste of the most.
This cook was with a 2 day cold prove of the Ooni dough recipe.
Dough Recipe Number 3: Pizza Bible – Page 23 onwards
This recipe is fantastic and my current favourite. It’s really easy to put together with minimal time spent mixing. You leave it to rise/1st prove for an hour then cold prove it for 24 hours, split into dough balls and 2nd prove for another 24 hours. The dough at the end is really easy to work with, cooks well and tastes fantastic. The two cooks below are from this dough recipe:
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Dough Recipe Number 4: Pizza Bible Poolish
This dough recipe is different to my usual ones because you make a Poolish starter the day before you make the pizza dough. Its kept at room temperature for 18 hours then put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool. Next the pizza dough is made including the Poolish and left to rest at room temperature for 20 minutes. before the dough is split into 6 lots of 255 grams and cold proved for 40 hours.
The dough looks and smells great but I have made it a few times and found it really hard to work with as it stretches so much leaving a very thin dough that rips. I will try it again as it might be user error but it’s been a difficult one so far!
This cook is from the Pizza Bible Poolish recipe.
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As I try more dough recipes I will update this page.
Pizza Dough Ingredients:
When I first started cooking on my Ooni 2S the Pizza Ingredients I used were standard items found in most supermarkets. After I started the blog and began keeping better notes I wanted to try and improve the quality and taste of my pizzas so started looking into different ingredients.
Initially I used standard plain flour then moved on to 00 flour which was definitely an improvement but moving to the Molino Grassi 00 flour made a massive difference to my pizzas and I haven’t moved away from it yet. It’s sold in 1KG bags and you get 10 of them so it lasts a while!
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A little update to that paragraph above, I recently tried some Caputo Red flour and I could feel the difference in the dough when I shaped the balls but it was also easier to stretch/shape and once cooked it looked and tasted better. It is more expensive than the Molino Grassi but I will be using this going forward.
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This was the cook using that flour:
After I changed the flour I then changed the yeast as well. Previously I had been buying standard dry active yeast sachets but moved to Saf Levure dry active yeast. It comes in a large 500g pot and lasts for ages. The difference in the pizza was noticeable as the dough seemed to rise better but also seemed easier to handle, stretch and shape. The cooked pizza also seemed to taste better as the dough was lighter and easier to eat.
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Additional Equipment:
Mixer: You can mix the dough by hand or you can make your life a lot easier with one of these!
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Scales: Some of the measurements are quite precise so some good scales will make your life a lot easier. These are good, not too big and fairly cheap.
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Rest/First Rise: Once the dough has been mixed I tend to leave it a while for a rest or the first rise. This 6 litre food container with a lid is ideal for the job and can fit in the fridge if you are cold proving.
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2nd Rise/Proof: Once the dough has been balled and is ready for the 2nd rise or proof then I place them in these Food grade pizza dough trays. They are sold in packs of three and I usually end up with three dough balls in each of the first two trays with the third tray acting as a lid.
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Pizza Dough Tips:
– You can get fresh yeast from the supermarket, just go up to the bakers bit and ask them. I have tried it once and didn’t get as good results as I did with the Saf-Levure. I will try it again but it’s handy having a big pot to one side.
– I have also tried premium British 00 flour and not had results close to the Molino Grassi flour. This flour has a high gluten level which helps create more bubbles in the pizza dough.
– On one cook the dough didn’t rise much and I blamed it on the supermarket yeast we had used. But the next time round my wife checked the temperature of the water before she put the yeast in and it was 46 degrees Celsius. Looking online the optimum temperature range for yeast fermentation is 27c to 38c. We added more cold water and got it down to 36c, this time the dough rose much better so maybe 46c is too hot for the yeast.
– Only ever shape the dough with your hands, don’t use a rolling pin as it knocks the air out which stops the crust rising as much.
– If you don’t want to make fresh dough or don’t have time you can get frozen pizza dough from Northern Dough Company in the supermarket which folk have had good results with.
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