Cold-Fermented Pizza Dough
current situation: Sunday funday
Four ingredients, five minutes of work, and then you leave it alone in a cold fridge for a day. That is the whole thing, and it is better than dough that took an afternoon of kneading.
Time replaces effort. Kneading develops gluten fast by force; a wet dough left to sit develops the same gluten on its own, for free, while you are asleep. And the cold is not just storage — yeast slows almost to a stop below 40°F while the enzymes that break starch into sugar keep working, so a cold-fermented dough browns better and tastes of bread instead of tasting of yeast.
Make a double batch. It keeps three days in the fridge and gets better for two of them.
- Makes
- Four 12-inch bases
- Hands-on
- 10 minutes
- Cold ferment
- 24–72 hours
- Kneading
- None
What you need
All of it
- 1000 g bread flour — weigh it, cups are not accurate enough for dough
- 650 g cold water (65%)
- 20 g salt
- 3 g instant yeast — that is about a teaspoon, and it is deliberately tiny
- 20 g olive oil
How it goes
1 — Weigh everything. Do not use cups.
A cup of flour can vary by twenty percent depending on how it was scooped, and twenty percent on a pizza dough is the difference between slack and stiff. A scale costs fifteen dollars.
2 — Mix only until there is no dry flour
Hands or a spoon, one minute. It will be shaggy, sticky and ugly. That is a finished dough at this stage — there is no kneading in this recipe.
3 — A teaspoon of yeast and no more
Over twenty-four cold hours a tiny amount of yeast does everything a large amount does in two warm hours, and the result tastes of wheat rather than of yeast. More yeast is the single most common mistake.
4 — Cover it and put it straight in the fridge
No bulk rise on the counter first. Straight in, covered, for at least twenty-four hours and up to three days.
5 — It will barely look like it has risen. It has.
Cold dough expands slowly and stays dense-looking. Pull a corner and you will see a web of bubbles through it. That is the gluten that was built without you.
pro tip — At seventy-two hours it smells faintly of beer and makes the best pizza of the three days. Past that it starts to go slack and tear.
6 — Divide into balls two hours before you bake
Out of the fridge, cut into four, each one shaped into a tight ball and left covered on a floured tray at room temperature. Two hours, not less — cold dough will not stretch and springs back.
7 — Stretch by hand, never a rolling pin
Fingertips from the centre outwards, leaving the last inch untouched. A rolling pin crushes every bubble you spent a day making and gives you a cracker.
8 — Hottest oven you have, on preheated metal
500°F or more with a heavy tray or an upturned sheet pan heating for half an hour. Twelve to fourteen minutes.
Sunday funday. Make it Saturday and the Sunday takes care of itself. LFG.