If you're in a hurry, skip the rise and make the pizza right now. It will make a thin-crusted pizza with a cracker-like flavor. Option 2 — Let the dough rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. If you're planning to make pizza today, then give the dough a rise.
The yeast inside your dough must rise before baking, which allows it to undergo chemical reactions which create air pockets or little bubbles within the dough. Without these little pockets of air, your dough will bake into a flat and dull bread that is simply too dense to be enjoyed.
All of the experts interviewed for this article agreed that a cold fermentation is best for producing a flavorful pizza dough that's airy and easy to digest, and that at least 24 hours is best.
How to use refrigerated pizza dough. When you're going to use the refrigerated dough, take it out of the fridge at least 1 hour before you're planning to bake pizza, to let it come to room temperature. You can now use it just like any room temperature fermented pizza dough.
Before you put the pizza in the oven the next day, take the dough out and let it reach room temperature (typically 1-2 hours). This is the best way to get a light and tasty crust. You can also use a cold fermented pizza dough recipe which can yield an incredible flavor and pocketed-crust.
Your dough will rise in the fridge and it can be a huge help as it makes bread making easy to fit into your day. When you put your dough in the fridge it slows the yeast activity down. It takes ten times longer for dough to rise in the fridge than it does at room temperature.
Overview: How to Make Easy Pizza Dough
Knead: Knead by hand or with your mixer. I like doing this by hand. Rise: Place dough into a greased mixing bowl, cover tightly, and set aside to rise for about 90 minutes or overnight in the refrigerator.
Allow the dough to rise, covered, for 45 minutes; then refrigerate it for 4 hours (or up to 36 hours); this step will develop the crust's flavor. It'll continue to rise in the fridge, so make sure it's in a big enough bowl. Divide the dough in half.
If your prep area is too cold, scout out warmer areas in your kitchen – perhaps next to a stove or heater – where you can place your dough bowl as it rises. If all else fails, you can try placing the bowl containing your dough in a warm water bath to speed up how quickly it rises.
The longer dough rises (up to a point), the more flavor it develops. Conversely, dough that rises too quickly produces bread with flat flavor. Nail the sweet spot — warm enough to rise at a decent rate, yet cool enough to develop flavor — and you're golden.
Most traditional pizza dough recipes call for the dough to rise twice. The first rise gives the dough time to develop its gluten structure, which gives the finished crust its chewy texture.
If you don't let pizza dough rise, then it will not be able to trap the air bubbles that make for a light and airy crust. This will result in flat and dense bread that won't have much flavor or texture.
Signs of Overproofed Pizza Dough:
The dough has risen beyond its original size: Overproofed dough will have a very large volume and may spring out of the container. The dough is soft and sticky: Overproofed dough will feel very soft and may be difficult to handle.
Yes. After the first rise, you can knead the dough lightly to remove some gas that causes air bubbles.
The idea behind stretching your pizza out is that it will be handled more delicately, meaning the air bubbles that are produced in there during the proofing process won't get lost in the shaping out process. Whereas rolling it out will deflate everything that has built up while the dough was proofing.
Bring your dough to room temperature.
Before you begin stretching, warm up your cold dough for at least 30 minutes at room temperature. Gluten, the protein that makes pizza dough chewy, is tighter in cold conditions like the fridge, which is why cold pizza dough will stretch out and snap back just like a rubber band.
Knead Your Dough Properly
Gluten is what helps create a stretchy texture, allowing the dough to stretch without breaking. Though it's important to knead your dough thoroughly, it's not necessary to knead your dough for long. We recommended kneading your dough for about 4 to 6 minutes!
Homemade pizza will often rise too much to produce a thick, bready pizza, rather than a nice thin crispy crust which everyone aims for. I used to get this problem all the time when I started, and my pizzas were pretty inconsistent. With a little know-how, you can get your pizzas light and crisp every time.
Under-proofed pizza dough is hard to stretch and dense. An over-proofed dough will stretch too thin and won't spring up when you put it in the oven. Warm-up your dough: Cold dough is hard to stretch and more prone to tearing. Let your dough warm up to at least room temperature before stretching for best results.
So we've learned that bread made with a single rise will be less mature than if double risen, but this doesn't have to be bad! A lighter-tasting loaf can be especially pleasant! Especially when you don't want your bread detracting from other flavours.
Physically test your dough with the poke test
What bakers call the “poke test” is the best way to tell if dough is ready to bake after its second rise. Lightly flour your finger and poke the dough down about 1". If the indent stays, it's ready to bake. If it pops back out, give it a bit more time.
The second proving has given the bread more elasticity, and made it harder to deflate the air. Second rises may add significantly to the total time it takes to complete a loaf of bread, but the step can be essential to achieving the taste and texture inherent to a number of popular breads.