There are a lot of things that go into making the perfect pizza such as pizza sauces, cheese and half of that lies in getting the ingredients right. If you wish to have a combination of creamy and cheesy flavour on your pizza, you can try out one of these Alfredo sauces. There are not that many ingredients that go into making pizzas, but there is definitely one that you will have to get right to make sure that your pizza tastes good. The pizza flour is hands down one of the integral ingredients that will make or break your pizza. If your pizza flour is not the correct one, then there is a possibility that your pizza won’t turn out as how you wanted it to.
There are a lot of things that go into deciding the perfect pizza flour. The biggest thing that you would need to consider is the type of crust. So, to make sure that you get the desired crust on the pizza, it is essential that you choose a type of flour. As there are different types of flour used for making pizza dough and each of them behaves differently and accordingly. Continue reading to learn about the different kinds of flour used to make pizza dough.
Different Types of Flour
Now that we know that pizza flour is one of the most essential items required to make the perfect pizza, it is also important to select the type of flour suitable for your requirements. Each type of flour that we use for a pizza dough has different stretching capabilities, and each of them, when baked, will give you a different type of crust. So, with the help of this article, you can decide on the particular flour type that you can use to get the type of pizza crust that you want for your pizza. We are going to do this by providing you with information on the different kinds of flour, and how they make different kinds of crust.
1. All-Purpose Flour
The All-purpose flour is a multi-purpose flour, and that means that it is not explicitly manufactured for making pizza doughs. You can use the all-purpose flour to make the pizza dough. There is a high chance of the baking a good pizza crust, but there is a possibility that the dough will tear off as the all-purpose flour doesn’t have the elasticity that you can find in other flours. The all-purpose flour is suitable if you are looking forward to making thin-crust or New York style pizza crusts. You can also make the deep-dish crusts, but we would prefer you to go with the all-purpose flour for thin-crust pizzas.
2. Bread Flour
As the name suggests, the bread flour is mainly used to make bread loafs, but many of them go with the bread flour to make pizza dough. Using bread flour will add crispiness to your thin crust pizza. Usually, the bread flour has a lot of gluten content which helps it stretch properly without breaking. If you are looking forward to small shapes and specific designs with the bread flour, that is a little bit difficult to achieve. If you are exclusively looking for thin-crust pizza, then the bread flour is the optimum choice for you.
3. Caputo Tipo 00 flour
The Caputo Tipo 00 flour is one of the best flours to choose from if you are looking forward to making Neapolitan style pizzas. There are many types of pizzas available in the market; if you are unfamiliar with what exactly is Neapolitan Style pizza is, you can review our article in detail. These pizzas have a different overall structure starting from a thin crust in the middle to the outer things that get buffed out. This is a unique style that can be done only with the Caputo Tipo 00 flour mainly because of the excellent grind of the flour and the 12.5% gluten content of the flour. To get the perfect brown shades on the pizza crust, it is important that your oven can perform well at 500°F or else you will be left with a bland looking pizza crust.
Pizza Dough Recipe
When it comes to making the perfect pizza, everything boils down to using the ideal ingredients inside the pizza, and this means that you will have to concentrate on the recipe of the pizza dough to get the whole thing right. When it comes to the toppings, you have complete freedom to go out of quantity. To make sure that all the ingredients on the toppings bind well with each other and you enjoy every bite of your pizza, it is essential to get the pizza dough recipe right.
The pizza dough recipe has very basic ingredients that you can get from your supermarket. The trick lies in how you prepare the dough recipe and knead it to perfection. If you are fairly new at it, you could use the help of a commercial dough mixer. The key ingredients that are included in the pizza dough recipe;
- Flour (According to your interest and choice of crust)
- Water (As required)
- Kosher salt
- Oil (Olive oil is preferred)
- Yeast
When preparing the dough recipe, you will have to follow the following steps;
- Add the flour, kosher salt and the yeast with the help of a sift to get an even structure on the pizza crust.
- Mix the dry ingredients well and once they are indeed together well, start adding water and oil in limited proportions to make sure that the mixtures turn into a dough ball.
- Mix the dough and knead them consistently to get a smooth texture over the dough.
- If you feel that the dough is dry, make sure to add some water in tablespoons and bring it to a good dough consistency.
Take a bowl and grease it with some olive oil and cover the whole of the bowl with a plastic wrap and let the dough double in its size. If you are finding it difficult to make your own pizza dough, we have reviewed some of the best store-bought pizza dough available in the market. You can go through our guide for buying pizza dough.
Also Read: Difference between Marinara and Pizza sauce
Conclusion
There are a lot of different crust of pizzas that you can make by choosing the right kind of flour. You also need to make sure that the ingredients that you are using to make the dough is kneaded together with perfection without lumps to make sure that your pizza doesn’t end up imperfect after it has been cooked. If you are looking forward to a particular type of crust, then you need to concentrate on the flour that you are using.