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Make-Ahead Thin-Crusted Pizza Crust

Course Pizza Crust
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 3 hours 3 minutes
Cook Time 3 hours 3 minutes
Author Chris Scheuer

Ingredients

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ cups hot tap water
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon active dry yeast

Instructions

  1. Place dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook attached. Mix for about 30 seconds until well combined. Add hot water and olive oil.
  2. Mix with dough hook for about 10 minutes. After several minutes dough will leave the sides of the bowl and form a ball - continue kneading for the remaining time (if dough is wet and doesn't form a ball, add just a bit more flour, a tablespoon at a time, until it does).
  3. After kneading with the dough hook for 10 minutes, remove bowl from mixer and turn dough out onto a floured surface. Divide into four equal pieces and turn to coat each with flour. Cover with a clean dish towel and let rest for 10 more minutes. This rest time allows the glutens in the dough to relax which will make rolling much easier.
  4. Roll each ball out into approximately a 14-15 inch circle . Dough will be very thin, almost paper thin. Don't worry if circles aren't perfectly shaped - these are rustic pizzas, they look better if they aren't perfect. Repeat rolling the other balls of dough and place each rolled circle onto an individual piece of parchment paper. (I put a piece of parchment paper on top of a large cutting board and then stack them up on top of each other, each one on it's own sheet of parchment paper. There is no rise involved with this thin-crusted pizza so you can just stack them up until ready to bake.)
  5. Preheat oven to 450 degrees with pizza stone on the bottom rack. Slide parchment paper with pizza dough onto preheated pizza stone.
  6. Bake about 5 minutes until crust is starting to puff and is just starting to turn golden. It should no longer be doughy, but not yet cooked through. Remove crust and parchment from oven. At this point you can either proceed with topping and baking your pizzas or you can cool crusts to room temperature and freeze for using at another time. (I like to freeze them un-wrapped, then once frozen, wrap in plastic wrap or foil.)
  7. Finishing the Pizza:
  8. Flip the crust over to top the side that was originally on the stone. Top pizza crust with your sauce, toppings and cheese. Return to the pizza stone in the oven and remove the parchment.
  9. Bake an additional 5-10 minutes until crust is crisp and cheese is melted. Watch pizza closely to make sure it doesn't burn. The time it takes will depend on your oven and pizza toppings. Remove from the oven and place on a cutting board. Slice and serve!