Thin Crust Pizza -

Thin Crust Pizza

Chewy, flavorful, and as thin as you want it to be, this is the ultimate thin crust pizza dough. The recipe is based on our favorite semolina pizza dough we've been making for over 20 years!

Course dinner, Main Dish

Cuisine American, Italian

Prep Time 5

Rising time 2

Total Time 2 5

Servings slices

Calories 156kcal

Author Ann Otis

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
½ cup semolina coarsely ground wheat flour
¾ teaspoon quick rise yeast* ("instant" or "bread machine" yeast)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup warm water (around 95-105F)
Olive oil for coating the bowl

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the flours, semolina, yeast, sugar and salt.
Add the warm water and stir, just until it starts to come together.
Fit the dough hook to the stand mixer and mix on low speed for about 5 minutes until the dough comes together in a smooth ball. The dough should still be a little sticky and will stick to the bottom of the bowl, but if will not come away from the sides at all, add more flour, one tablespoon at a time, mixing until it comes together. Do not add too much flour or the crust will be tough.
Drizzle a little olive oil down the inside of the bowl and roll the ball of dough around to coat the dough and the inside of the bowl.
Cover the bowl with a tea towel and put in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours, until doubled in size.
Towards the end of the rising time, place a pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven, and preheat the oven and pizza stone to the highest temperature it will go (mine goes to 550F). Alternatively, you can use a 16 inch or larger pizza pan. Regardless of the surface used, preheating it will give the best results, giving you a crust with a crispy, not doughy bottom.
Once it has doubled, punch the dough down and form it back into a ball. Sprinkle a little semolina onto a large piece of high-heat parchment paper*. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough as thinly as you can, into a large circle, about 14-16 inches wide. If the dough is snapping back as you try to shape it, let it rest a few minutes and keep rolling. You may need to repeat this a few times, if your dough is a little cool. Add your sauce and toppings.
Using the parchment paper to lift, transfer the pizza and parchment paper to a pizza peel, wooden cutting board, or the back of a large baking sheet (or transfer it to a pizza pan). Open the oven door and carefully slide the pizza AND parchment onto the hot baking stone, or just transfer the pizza pan to the oven.
Bake 8-12 minutes until golden and cooked through. Time will depend on how hot your oven is, and on whether you are baking on a preheated stone or using a pizza pan.

Video

Notes

Note: This dough contains a fairly small amount of yeast, which means it will take a couple of hours to double in size, compared to my standard semolina pizza dough. This longer rise time ensures a dough with plenty of flavor that will stay relatively thin instead puffing and rising a lot as it bakes. It can easily be made a day ahead and allowed to rest and rise in the refrigerator overnight. Be sure to bring it to room temperature before using, or it will be very difficult to roll out.

Yeast: You can use active dry yeast instead of quick rise, no problem. Instead of adding the yeast in with the dry ingredients, you will want to activate it first by combining it with the water and sugar. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes until it's foamy, then add that to the remaining ingredients. Give your dough an extra hour or so to rise.

High heat parchment: a good-quality, high-heat parchment paper is needed here, otherwise the paper may burn, or char so much that it disintegrates. Note that the paper will darken somewhat, but should otherwise be fine. I have never had an issue using parchment paper, and find it helps a lot with transferring the pizza onto, and off, the pizza stone. But if you prefer not to use it, you can form the pizza on top of a pizza peel well dusted with flour, and use that to transfer the pizza directly onto the pizza stone.

Nutrition