Easy Recipe for Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
This dough just opened up a whole new pizza-making world. It only takes one hour to make and rise. And it’s a now-or-later dough. Make it now or save it for another day. This pizza dough is a blend of both quick-to-make and it can be make-in-advance. This ridiculously easy dough combines the best of both worlds. I also kept it vegan and used whole wheat flour so it’s healthier. So you can eat more pizza. The dough bakes up soft, chewy, and it’s thick and hearty with just subtle hints of wheat flavor. Even if you’ve never made yeasted bread or pizza dough, this whole wheat flour pizza dough recipe is nearly foolproof. From start to finish, and in just over an hour, you’re eating totally homemade pizza.
Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Ingredients
To make this easy recipe for whole wheat pizza dough, you’ll need:
Bread flour Whole wheat flour Instant dry yeast Granulated sugar Olive oil Warm water Corn meal (for baking)
How to Make Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
I’ve gone into detail below on how to make this easy whole wheat pizza dough. Keep scrolling to the bottom of this post for the full recipe! To make the dough, combine flour, instant dry yeast, a pinch of sugar, pour warm water over it, along with a drizzle of olive oil, and mix it for about 45 seconds with the paddle attachment. Switch to the dough hook and knead for about eight minutes and that’s it. I used my stand mixer, which does the kneading for me, but feel free to get your arm workout in and knead by hand. Knead the bread for a good six to eight minutes. Because the rising time is just one hour, and since wheat flour can be resistant to rising, you want to really knead this dough well to encourage gluten development so the dough rises well.
After kneading, the dough will be soft, smooth, firm, and not overly sticky. Spray the mixing bowl or another bowl with cooking spray, place the dough in the bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Place the bowl in a warm, draft-free place to rise for about one hour, or until nearly doubled in size. A trick for creating a warm environment is to turn on the oven for one minute to 400F, then shut the oven off. Repeat: don’t leave the oven on, you are just blasting in hot air for one minute only. Quickly slide your bowl into the oven and let it stay there to rise for an hour. It will be about 80F inside the oven after the brief one minute blast. This tricks the yeast into thinking it’s a nice, warm summer day in your kitchen, which is how do their best work.
The puffiness is a result of the gases created while the yeast work, and the dough needs to be punched down. After punching it down, you have a choice: Cover the bowl back up with plastic and refrigerate it for up to two days; or, make pizza with it now. Depending on how large you like your pizza, you can likely use half now and refrigerate half for later. When you’re ready to make pizza with it, turn dough out onto a floured work surface or a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat. Roll it into the shape you want or stretch it into submission. It does have a mind of it’s own and will try to recoil, but just keep on rolling, stretching, and finger massaging it into the shape you want.
Baking the Pizza Dough
Top the dough with pizza sauce, olive oil, browned butter; with cheese or with the toppings you like, and bake at 425 to 550F+ for about 10 to 15 minutes. Baking times and temperatures are variable, based on oven temps, toppings used, and personal taste preferences. I bake at 425F for about 15 minutes when the pizza is pretty loaded with toppings. I don’t have a pizza stone or anything fancy and just bake on a Silpat-lined baking sheet.
How Many Pizzas Will This Recipe Make?
You can make one large rectangular pizza, filling a standard-sized baking sheet. Or make two medium or four smaller tortilla-sized pizzas. I recommend rolling out the dough fairly thinly, because it will rise and puff in the oven. This is not thin crust pizza and bakes up fairly thick, but the thinner it starts out, the thinner it bakes.
What Happens If I Let the Dough Rise for Longer?
I’ve let this dough rise for as long as two hours due to distractions and timing issues, and nothing bad happens. In fact, the pizza crust will be a bit fluffier. If you want to allow it to rise for up to about two hours, or doubled in size, that’s fine. But the recipe does and will work with just a one hour rise.
What’s the Best Yeast for Pizza Dough?
I used Red Star Platinum yeast, which is my gold standard. It’s an instant dry yeast so you don’t have to proof it first with water and wait for it to get bubbly and foamy. Just sprinkle it right into the bowl with the other ingredients and pour water over the top of everything. When I deviate from Platinum and use other yeast, especially for wheat breads, I don’t have as much success. My wheat loaves turn out flatter and denser and my white loaves never bake as puffy and fluffy. If you do use Platinum yeast, the water should be warmed to about 120F to 130F, which is notably warmer than most other instant dry yeast, which typically call for temps in the 100F range.
Tips for the Best Whole Wheat Flour Pizza Dough
For the flour, I used both whole wheat flour and bread flour, and used 1 cup of each, plus another quarter cup of bread flour. I didn’t want to exceed over half the total amount with whole wheat flour because it has less gluten, making rising more lengthy and challenging. Since this is a one-hour dough without time to spare waiting for pokey dough to rise, I didn’t exceed fifty percent wheat. Follow the manufacturer’s recommendations with whatever yeast you use. Some people just dip their finger into water and if that’s the method you’re using, err on the side of warm bath water rather than hot because you don’t want to risk killing the yeast. In bread-making, I don’t like to guess and always use my candy thermometer. I just never use it for candy.
Make sure to use sugar as it feeds the yeast and it’s necessary. I didn’t add salt for a variety of reasons. Salt can inhibit rising and between the pizza sauce, cheese, meat and toppings, there’s plenty of sodium-laden ingredients on pizza. We didn’t miss the sodium in the crust. To prevent the underside of the crust from become too browned while baking, a tip is to sprinkle a tablespoon of corn meal on the baking tray, and put the dough on top of that. As insurance against air bubbles forming while baking, prick the dough a few times with fork tines before adding your toppings so the air has a place to escape.
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