The Best Artisan Pizza Crust

I’ve been working on perfecting a made from scratch pizza crust for a very, very long time. For longer than I care to admit. I’ve had pretty good results using store bought refrigerated pizza dough, but I’ve always wanted bragging rights to making my own, completely from scratch crust. Unfortunately I’ve had numerous less than stellar results. There are just a few simple ingredients and you would think making a delicious pizza crust would be rather simple, but I found it’s trickier than I thought, but not impossible. In my experience, the dough baked up too thick and doughy or it was too thin and limp. Many of the recipes I tried were tasteless, lacking any depth of flavor and frankly, they were quite spectacularly…unimpressive. I wanted to create a crust with a good chew, with those delectable crispy burnt, blistered edges that you typically find at a high priced pizzeria with commercial grade pizza ovens. I also wanted to find a recipe that used regular ingredients like all purpose flour that I could bake up in a standard kitchen oven. It had to be easy enough to make on a regular basis and it had to taste great! I know me, if something is too complicated my lazy side will win out and yet another overpriced pizza from the pizzeria will appear on the table for dinner. After numerous failed attempts I was starting to believe that it wasn’t possible, that I was doomed to purchasing overpriced pizzas, until I stumbled upon this recipe. My perseverance to find the perfect pizza crust came to fruition when I pulled a nearly perfect pizza out of my oven, on my very first try! You would think making a delicious pizza at home would be simple, and it is, but you have to know the technique for how to do it well. Honestly, nobody wants a tasteless doughy pizza. Keep reading to find out how you can make the very best pizza with the perfect crust in your home oven.

Jump to Recipe

How To Make An Artisan Pizza Crust:

You will get the best results, and crispiest crust baking your pizza on a Cast Iron Pizza Steel. Instead of baking your pizzas on a baking stone that will crack over time, invest in a cast iron pizza steel instead. I’ve shelled out a small fortune over the years replacing broken baking stones that invariably crack, no matter how careful I am. For about the same price as a baking stone, I finally invested in a cast iron pizza steel that will last me a lifetime. It hangs out on the bottom rack of my oven when I’m not using it (which I’ve found also helps regulate the temperature inside the oven) and I use it for baking cookies, garlic bread; just about anything you typically use a baking sheet for. A baking stone or pizza steel is absolutely essential in making the best pizza crust.

Don’t let the long list of instructions scare you away from trying this recipe. Each step in the process is extremely simple to execute. The most important part is the timing, or more importantly allowing yourself the time to complete the needed steps to make the crust on the first day. Work backwards 3 days from the day you want to bake up your pizza for dinner. The first day is where all the hands on steps are needed. Day two and three the dough is just hanging out in the fridge. The long cold ferment is what develops the depth of flavor in the crust. Pick a day when you are going to be home and have the time to execute all the steps to prepare the dough. After you get the dough into the fridge all that’s left to do is to bake up the pizzas and they bake up in just a few quick minutes. With a little preplanning you can serve up pizzeria quality pizza at home even on a busy weeknight. It won’t cost you an arm and a leg, it tastes just as good as an overpriced pizza from a pizzeria and it takes just a few minutes to get a freshly baked pizza on the table for dinner. Seriously, this dough will bake up the best pizza you will ever enjoy!!!

Make the dough:

You will get the best results if you weigh out each of the ingredients using a kitchen scale.

In a bowl stir together the 500 grams of flour and 375 grams of water until well combined and you have a sticky, shaggy looking dough.

Cover and set aside. Allow the dough to rest for 20 minutes.

In a small bowl stir together 2 tablespoons water with the yeast. Set it aside and let it rest alongside the dough.

After the dough has rested for 20 minutes sprinkle the top of the dough with the salt.

Pour the yeast water over the dough.

Wet your hands so the dough doesn’t stick to them and begin the stretch and folds. Grab one edge of the dough, pull it up and fold it into the center of the bowl. Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat the process several times. The dough will get smoother and smoother with each stretch and fold.

Take one wet hand and start pinching the dough together into 5 or 6 sections. Fold the dough over onto itself and pinch the dough again into 5 or 6 sections. 

Continue pinching and folding dough over until the salt and the yeast water is fully incorporated into the dough, about 8-10 times.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for an hour. It will relax and flatten out in the bowl.

After an hour, do another series of stretch and folds. Wet your hands to prevent sticking and grab one edge of the dough, pull it up and fold it into the center of the bowl. Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat the process several times.

Keep stretching and folding until dough starts to tighten up and you are able to form the dough into a loose ball.

Grease another bowl with some olive oil.

Take the dough ball and transfer it to the greased bowl with the smooth side facing up. Drizzle the top of the dough ball with a little olive oil and use your hand to coat the entire ball of dough with the oil. This will prevent the dough from forming a hard crust on top. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until it has doubled in volume, about 5-6 hours.

Once the dough has doubled in volume turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.

Cut the dough in half.

Stretch out one half of the dough by grabbing one edge and pulling up until you feel resistance, then fold it into the center. Repeat until you have repeated this process 4-5 times and you have formed the dough into a loose ball. 

Pull the ball towards you cupping it in both hands, stretching the top of the dough and forming a tighter ball as you pull the ball of dough towards you. Repeat this process, pulling the ball of dough towards you tightening the ball of dough until you have a smooth, tight ball of dough that looks like the picture below.

Transfer the ball of dough onto a greased plate and repeat this process with the second half of the dough.

Lightly grease the two balls of dough with olive oil, cover them with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for an hour.

After an hour transfer each ball of dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap tightly. Place wrapped dough balls in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

NOTE: Dough can be frozen at this point for longer storage. When ready to make pizza, remove dough from the freezer and thaw it in the refrigerator overnight.

Bake pizzas:

Place a pizza steel or baking stone in the oven on the middle rack.

Preheat oven to 475℉. Allow oven to preheat for 45 minutes.

While the oven is preheating, remove dough from the refrigerator.

Flour a pizza peel generously with flour. 

Place a ball of dough onto the floured work surface or directly on the floured peel and flatten out the dough. Grab the edges of the dough and gently stretch and form the dough into a 12-14 inch circle leaving the outer edge of dough a little thicker than the center.

Jiggle the peel to make sure the dough isn’t sticking to the peel. If it’s sticking lift up the edges of the dough and add more flour to the peel until pizza slides around easily on the peel. 

Top the dough with your favorite pizza sauce. Give my favorite pizza sauce recipe a try. It’s super easy to make and one of the best sauces you’ll ever try. It uses common ingredients that most well stocked kitchens will always have on hand, so no last minute run to the store for an ingredient you don’t have in your panty. Leftovers can be frozen for up to four months and used later, so there’s no waste.

Top the sauce with a layer of grated mozzarella cheese and the toppings of your choice.

Once the pizza steel is screaming hot, gently slide pizza off of the pizza peel onto the pizza steel in the oven.

TIP: If transferring the pizza onto the pizza steel in a hot oven intimidates you, remove the pizza steel from the oven and slide the pizza off the peel and onto the hot steel. Be careful not to burn yourself! Return the steel right back into the oven to bake the pizza. 

Bake pizza for 5-6 minutes until the cheese is melted and the crust is starting to brown. The crust will puff up as it bakes.

Lift up the edge of the pizza crust and check to make sure the crust is a nice golden brown on the bottom. Turn oven temperature to broil and broil pizza for 2-4 minutes or until the pizza crust edges start to burn in spots ever so slightly and blisters. 

Remove pizza from the oven and repeat the same process with the second ball of dough.

This process creates one of the best crusts I have ever enjoyed. It has a great chew with loads of airy pockets. Turning on the broiler for the last couple minutes produces those crispy burnt spots that you typically only get in a professional pizza oven.

Yes there are several steps to execute when making the dough, but they are oh so easy to do and the end results definitely make it all worthwhile. This recipe produces enough dough to make 2 large pizzas. Use one right out of the fridge and freeze the other for another night. Just thaw it overnight in the fridge before you plan to use it. You can skip buying inexpensive, tasteless pizzas made with cheap imitation cheese and low quality ingredients, or spending an arm and a leg for good quality pizza from a pizzeria. You can make your own at home that rivals anything you can get delivered…guaranteed!

A huge shout out to Indi Hampton at withspice.com for providing the technique for this pizza crust recipe. I made a few adjustments to the basic recipe, (I added a little more salt and yeast) but followed the technique as listed. The long cold ferment time in the fridge is brilliant and produces a depth of flavor that I have never been able to create with any crust I have made before. I love that I can use basic all purpose flour that I always have on hand, instead of having to buy yet another specialty 00 flour or bread flour and still get stellar results. Not only is this the best pizza I have ever pulled out of my oven, it’s honestly better than most of the overpriced pizzas I’ve ordered from local pizzerias.

So the next time you are spending a day at home, get this dough going in the morning and pop it in the fridge later in the day. After a couple days in the fridge, you’ll be pulling one of the best tasting pizzas you’ll ever enjoy right out of your own oven.

Round out your pizza night meal with a Rich & Creamy Caesar Salad With Crisp, Garlicky Toasted Croutons. Skip the bagged salad kits at the grocery store. This salad is so good it rivals anything served up at a fancy restaurant and it’s just as easy to make as the less flavorful bagged versions from the supermarket. It’s delicious!!! If you’re going to all the effort to make the best pizza, it deserves the best salad to go along with it…right?

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