https://www.seriouseats.com/basic-new-york-style-pizza-dough
I've followed this recipe with measurments down to the exact gram a couple times, and the dough always ends up too wet to work with. Even with a lot of extra time in the food processor it just doesn't form into a ball and I always end up adding more flour when hand kneading it just to get it off my hands and to form a workable ball.
Has anyone had better success? Alternative recipes?
by Jumico
17 Comments
This is my go to dough recipe and I haven’t had any issues with it 🙁
You could try letting it sit for 10-15 minutes after combining, letting the dough hydrate. Then mix more.
What flour are you using?
Have you tried lightly wetting your hands before forming the ball? Instead of using flour.
I make this and his pan pizza recipes almost exclusively and have never hand an issue. I just use a regular stand mixer though and beat it up for a while (I know that is counterintuitive to some of his science, but my food processer can’t handle it.
Check the weight of your flour per cup too though. I had a bread recipe that was too wet and I was using Bob’s Red Mill Artisanal bread flour. I was using the standard 120g = 1 cup for flour, but that one was denser, 144g= 1 cup. Once I converted the measurement the recipe was so much better.
Pizza dough are sensitive to humidity. If it’s too wet, just put less water in it or more flour.
If you like the taste of the high hydration better and don’t want to reduce it, you can always stretch it out in an oily pan instead of trying to do it on a peel.
I’ve had this issue with the Detroit pizza dough at times depending on the weather.
Although my main issue is that the amount of dough that recipe makes seems to never be enough so I up the flour by 10-12%. If it’s summer/humid then I’ll only up the water by 5%. If it’s winter/drier I up the water roughly 10% and add a few more sprinkles if needed.
I am not a baker so dough is not something I enjoy making because there always seems to be an issue. My wife and her family are originally from the Detroit burbs so this is the one dough recipe where I can feel it out based on consistency/feel but there was plenty of trial and error before that.
Are you in a humid environment? That’s my problem these days. Reduce water up to 10%. It always better to reduce the water vs adding flour.
I haven’t had any problems with that recipe. It is a little sticky when it’s done, but I just dump it all onto a floured surface. Then I pull off chunks to roll into dough balls and pick up flour from the table as necessary to keep it from sticking to my hands.
I let the dough balls rest/rise under a bowl for a while and by the time I go to use them they’re always perfect.
You oil your hands and take half out onto a floured surface. Form a ball, flour it some and let sit. Then form a disk, let sit, do your final stretch.
Flour vaires in its ability to store water. After mixing you must let the dough rest before attempting to handle it. How you handle the dough also matters. Light quick touches with moist or oiled hands. It took me about a year to get really good at making and handling dough. The recipe has a 66% hydration level which is not on the high end. You might not be using a good bread four. I have had great success with King Arthurs in the blue bag for pizza in a home oven.
Measure your ingredients by weight. If that fails, consider it may be environmental factors and adjust the water down or try a different brand of flour.
65% hydration is a very normal for pizza, so no it’s not.
Just use less water and see if it works out for you
Well, thanks for all the help but turns out this was 100% user error. Almost embarrassed to admit it but with Past attempts, I tried using AP or 00 flour, or some blend of both. But I just went and actually bought bread flour like the recipe says and the resulting dough was drastically improved.
Just an hour ago, I watched Lan Lam and Dan Souza’s ATK YouTube video on Neapolitan pizza. They go in-depth into hydration. Might at least be informative.
https://youtu.be/oo_xBo-mmMY?si=rbm8Z2llhXNAilX0
I’ve found that giving dough time in the fridge (i.e. no knead method) to form those gluten bonds works just as well as hand kneading, no matter what the hydration is. It could start out sticky as hell with high hydration but overnight changes into a fairly workable dough. You would just need to make sure to make dough ahead of time.