Emeril Lagasse's Perfect Pizza Dough

By Addie

"This is my new favourite recipe for pizza dough; it's so easy and works so well. I was watching a recent episode ("Pizza Party") of his show and went to the web as soon as it was over to get the recipe. Here it is, but the instructions are different than what you'll find on the web as I use my heavy-duty mixer rather than make this by hand. Enjoy!"

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water ( 110F)
• 1 (1/4 ounce) envelope active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt

Preparation

Step 1

In the bowl of your heavy-duty mixer (like a Kenwood or KitchenAid), stir together the water, yeast and sugar; let sit until the mixture is foamy, which takes about 5 minutes.

Add 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the oil and salt into the yeast mixture and, using the paddle attachment (also known as the K beater), combine until mixture is smooth.

Switch to the dough hook. With the machine running at low, add remaining flour, 1/4 cup at a time; make sure each addition of flour is incorporated before adding the next.

Once all the flour has been added, turn up the speed and let the machine knead the dough for about 3 minutes; it should be very smooth and perhaps a bit tacky.

Feel free to add an extra minute or two of kneading if you wish; it won't hurt the dough at all.

Rub the insides of a large mixing bowl with a little olive oil; remove dough from machine, form into a ball, and place into oiled bowl, turning dough over to make sure all sides are oiled.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm, draft-free area to rise; the dough should nearly double in size, which will take about 60 to 90 minutes.

An old habit of mine is to place a towel around the bowl, just to make sure no drafts get to the dough.

When dough is ready, lightly punch it down and knead it a bit, still right in the bowl.

Lightly flour your work surface and place dough ball on it; let it rest for 10 minutes.

This makes one large pizza; if you prefer two smaller pizzas, cut dough in half, then form into two balls and let rest, as above.

After dough has rested, form into a 16-inch round (or two 8-inch rounds) and you're ready to make pizza, using your favourite toppings.

The biggest trick here, when stretching out the dough, is not to get frustrated; if you find you're stretching the pizza and it's resisting and is too elastic, bouncing right back from each stretch, just walk away for a few minutes; after you let the pizza rest again, you'll find the dough will let you stretch it out.

You might even want to try flipping it into the air a bit! Warning: let it come down on your knuckles, not your fingertips, or you'll tear the dough!

The best way to bake your prepared pizza is on a baking stone (or you can use a pizza pan, if you don't have a stone) on your lowest oven rack; Emeril suggests 8 to 10 minutes at 475F, but a little lower temperature for a little longer works just fine too.
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REVIEWS:

Fantastic pizza dough recipe. Thank you Lennie for putting the heavy duty mixer directions in, as I am a newbie at using one and it truly helped. The pizza crust was hailed as being perfect from my most difficult eaters.

Absolutely perfect! I'm a KitchenAid newbie, and this recipe was ideal for family pizza night. I just turned my oven on to its lowest setting while the dough was kneading, then turned it off once it was in the bowl, to help it rise. Will defintely make again!

I am a pizza fanatic and this is the best pizza crust recipe EVER! I have been trying for 20 years to find the best pizza crust recipe and this is it! Thick crust areas are intermingled with thin and crispy for the best combo thick/thin crust dough I've ever tasted. I used this recipe and watched a video on how to "sling it" and it turned out A+. Only diffence is I kneaded in in the mixer an extra 2 minutes and baked at 500 degrees. I even used quick rise bread machine yeast and regular white flour and it was still pefect. A must try!!!

Simple dough and easy to follow directions! This recipe is similar to Crusty Pizza Dough a la KitchenAid! #72792 that I just recently tried. I usually use Pizza Dough for my dough and I really like the addition of parmesan cheese in that one. However, I rolled out this dough really flat and prebaked it on my pampered chef baking stone and it was the best recipe for thin crust pizza. I did add some pizza spice to the dough but I kept everything else the same. I topped this with my new favourite topping Bar b que chicken (chopped chicken breast mixed with Bobbie q sauce Bobbie-Q Sauce (Barbecue Sauce)) along with caramelized onions, and mushrooms. I also do not have a kitchen aid mixer but the dough was easy to work with my hands.

This is the best pizza dough I have ever made. Normally when I make pizza dough it is dry and tasteless. This dough had a very nice flavor and it was so easy to make! This will definitely be my recipe for pizza dough from now on!

I have tried quite a few dough recipes, they are all very similar. I am giving this a 5 star rating because, when I made it the yeast was dead and the dough still came out great even though it didn't rise. It tasted great and spread out perfect. I am giving it another shot tonight with fresh yeast. Update...Came out fantastic. BUT..I have a problem with one 16" or two 8" pies. The area of a 16" pie is 804 sq in. to make two pies with the same area they have to be 11".

BEST pizza dough recipe of all. Will be the ONLY one I use from now on. Perfect consistency, perfect taste and easy to make.

Very good. My boyfriend and I made the pizza dough and pizza tonight for the first time and it was delicious. The only change that we will make is either add a little more sugar or add another type of spice to the dough to give it more flavor as it tasted too much like flour. It differently is a good recipe. Happy eating.

This is only the second pizza crust I've attempted, and it turned out GREAT. Delicious!!! I really appreciated the mixer directions. This will be my "go-to" pizza dough recipe from now on.

My fav for years! Works perfectly everytime!! Yummy!

We found this recipe on foodnetwork and decided to use it for Spicy Meat and Cheese Stromboli (Spicy Meat and Cheese Stromboli). Our stromboli looked beautiful and tasted amazing. We will try this again for a pizza sometime soon. I mixed by hand and kneaded with my dough hook, but since Lennie posted the recipe with mixer instructions from the start, I will happily cut out some of the work for me and let my mixer do it all in the future!

Easy to make, but we thought it tasted a little bland. My dough was a little tough to work with, I am sure it was me, I am just learning to bake breads and using my new kitchenaid. This was my first use of it. We made calzones with the dough and they were pretty good.

I have to give this 5 stars but it is worth 10! Made as directed, but decided to use my new pizza peel and plop it on my preheated baking stone...well, it stuck to the peel (my fault) and ended up being a "freeform" dough. Ha ha! But the taste was fabulous and DH said it was the best he had ever had. Very forgiving recipe...thanks for sharing!

This crust IS just perfect - not too doughy and just the right amount of crispiness! I did step 1 directly in the bowl of my bread machine, added the other ingredients and ran the dough cycle. It just doesn't get easier than this! The dough produced looked great and was very easy to handle. I wanted a thin, crispy type crust, so I divided the dough between two medium pans and spread it thin. Worked great! Thanks, Lennie.

Lennie, there was nothing wrong with this dough...the texture, in the end, just wasn't what I wanted. I like a chewy crust and this was more bread-like. My bread machine recipe gives the same result with much less work. :o)! Thanks, Lennie. M&Mers

I prepared this dough for making calzones, using the Kitchen-Aid mixer. I did need to add about 1 more cup of flour than recipe called for, but I'm finding I have to do that to most dough recipes. This smelled incredible from start to finish, and had a lovely taste and texture upon completion. Very nice dough; I will be making this again.