If you’re looking for a recipe you can rely on for a spontaneous pizza night, this is it. You can kick off making the dough late morning and be ready to bake in the evening.
It took some experimenting but after a couple of months of owning my pizza oven, I had finally crafted a recipe which I felt comfortable with and one which remained simple, but so tasty.
After unsuccessfully trying practically every “quick and easy” pizza dough recipe online in hope that it was possible to take some shortcuts, I soon found out that this just led to subpar pizzas lacking in both texture and flavour.
I developed an appreciation for the hard work that actually goes in to making a good pizza. To the outsider and restaurant goer, it seems like a quick and easy meal. It’s only once you start making them from scratch at home striving for the traditional Neapolitan shape and taste that you realise the extent of the time and effort that has gone into each pizza being served.
From entering the restaurant to being served a pizza in a traditional Italian, it wouldn’t be uncommon to be served up your pizza within 10 / 15 minutes. It’s therefore easy to underappreciate the work that has gone in to it from the misconception that it is indeed “fast food”. There has probably been at least 2 days worth of effort, patience and craft which have been put in to the dough from the chef’s fingertips before each pizza even gets a lick of a flame.
The compromise I was searching for was, can I create a recipe that I can prep in the morning and be ready to entertain at night? Where I live, the only thing more unreliable than train timetables is the weather forecasts. Its pretty much impossible to forward plan for eating outside.
When I trust the forecast enough (unbelievably you develop a sense for when this is possible in Scotland) I still like the labour of love making the poolish a couple of days in advance and going through the cold fermentation process.
However, I wanted to come up with something for a scenario where we’ve been experiencing and expecting terrible rain and wind all week, and then unexpectedly the sun is shining Saturday morning but I haven’t prepped any dough for a impromptu pizza night!
After multiple attempts and trial and error with methods and ingredients, this led to the development of my same day beer pizza dough.
Ingredients
This recipe calls for five different ingredients – 00 flour, beer, water, salt, and yeast.
For the flour and yeast, my preference is Caputo as you may have seen already on my ingredients page.
I tend to stay away from table salt, instead opting for either sea salt of Himalayan pink salt. The latter has become more and more popular in recent years and can be found in pretty much every supermarket these days.
Having tried a number of different beers, I find that a nice IPA works best for this recipe and actually manages to retain some of its flavour within the final cooked dough which I like! If you’re not a fan of that then experiment with lagers and lighter beers and see what your preference is. Brewdog Punk IPA is generally what I’ve found to be my go to for this one.
Method
To start, pour the water in a large mixing bowl followed by the beer. Putting the water in first stops it instantly foaming up, helpful if you’re an amateur beer pourer like myself.
Once your liquid ingredients are in the bowl, add in the salt and give it a quick mix together.
Add roughly a third of the flour to the bowl and mix together. This will make a thin batter and effectively creates a bit of a barrier to prevent the yeast and salt coming into contact with each other. Had the dry ingredients gone in the bowl first having the yeast on one side on top of the flour, and salt on the other side would have been adequate separation. For this particular recipe I prefer working with the wet ingredients first and gradually adding in the dry as you may not need all of the flour.
Once you’ve created your batter, add in the yeast and mix through. After this, gradually add in the rest of your flour. It will likely take around 5 to 10 minutes before you’ll have the desired texture. It should still be slightly sticky at the end.
Don’t begin kneading just yet. Cover the bowl with cling film, a wet tea towel or, if you’ve recently had a nice hotel break, a shower cap you’ve taken as a souvenir. Set it aside for 15 minutes to let everything settle.
After this, remove the cover. Lightly oil your work surface with olive oil and lightly oil your hands. Take the dough out of the bowl and begin kneading it on your work surface. You don’t need to knead for long, a couple of minutes at the most should do it. Form it into a bowl and put in a clean bowl and recover.
Leave the dough to rise at room temperature for 3 – 4 hours until it has more than doubled in size. Even better than room temperature… if you have a cupboard with a hot water cylinder, put it in there – Just check it regularly to make sure it doesn’t overproof to quickly and outgrow the bowl.
After the proofing process, take the dough out of the bowl and split in to 6 equal sized portions. Shape them into balls, lightly flour a storage container and place them in there. Put the lid on the container (cling film or similar methods described before will do if you don’t have one) and allow them to proof again for another 90 minutes.
Now you’re ready to stretch, top and bake! Enjoy!
Easy Beer Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 830 g 00 Flour
- 330 ml Beer (IPA works well)
- 250 ml Cold water
- 4 g Active Dry Yeast
- 25 g Salt
- 1 tbsp Olive oil
Instructions
- Pour all of the water in to a large bowl, followed by the beer. Add in all of the salt and give it a quick stir. It will fizz and foam slightly.
- Add around ⅓ of the 00 flour. This creates a barrier to prevent the salt and yeast coming in to direct contact. Add the yeast to the bowl.
- Gradually add in the rest of the 00 flour, either mixing by hand or with a mixer on a low / medium speed setting. Cover for 15 minutes.
- Take the dough out of the bowl and place on to a lightly oiled work surface. You can use flour instead of oil if you wish but I find that oil prevents the dough from drying out during the proofing stage.Knead the dough for a few minutes, you don't want to overwork it.
- Return the dough to a clean bowl, cover, and place in a warm area for 3 to 4 hours until the dough has approximately doubled in size.
- Take the dough out of the bowl and place on to a lightly flour surface before splitting in to 6 equal sized pieces. You can do this by eye but its best to measure the total mass of the dough and divide by 6 to ensure they are actually all the same size or you may notice differences later on during stretching.
- Ball up the 6 pieces of dough. You can do this by pulling up a quarter of the dough and pushing it into the centre. Repeat this 4 tips and finish of with a little twist and pinch underneath.Cover the dough balls for around 1 ½ hours.
- One at a time, take a dough ball out of the box or wherever you're storing them.Roughly scatter some cornmeal / semolina on the work surface and press you fingers down across the dough, stretching out towards the crust. Don't use a rolling pin to stretch or you'll lose all of the air in the dough that you've worked hard to create.Using your fingers on one hand, and the side of your palm on the other, rotate the dough on the work surface to stretch out. You should get a pizza base around 12 inches if weighed correctly.
- Top, bake and enjoy!If you're using a woodfired oven or portable pizza oven (Ooni, Roccboxx etc), it should take just 1 ½ minutes or so to cook fully.If you're using a conventional oven, preheat it on the highest setting. Put a steel pizza tray in the oven whilst preheating. After the oven is preheated, take the pizza tray out of the oven and place on a heatproof surface or cooling rack. Transfer your stretched dough to the tray, top and return to the oven. It will take around 8 - 10 minutes to cook fully. Keep a close eye on it during the cooking process and turn every 2 minutes or so.
