I've made eleven batches of dough using variations on Jill Santopietro's NYT Magazine formula as a basis. It's a very wet dough, creates a very light textured crust. I like it.
But I have bad luck hand tossing it. So I'm taking a few tips from Alton Brown, as he actually shows it done. Which means using his dough recipe as a starting point.
Big difference besides the proportions of stuff, he uses 'instant' yeast instead of regular active dry, and I figured out from his description (yeast plus ascorbic acid) that he was talking about what's labeled 'bread machine' yeast in the brands I can find. That, and he kneads in the KitchenAid for fifteen minutes. And finally, he goes straight to the fridge with his, no rising on the counter and punching down.
That's a lot of kneading. Before it was done, I thought at one point the machine had torn itself up. It started making a horrible clunking noise, and when I stopped it I found a metal disc at the bottom of the dough. Which turned out to be the cover for the attachment port on the nose of the machine. It had vibrated out.
I did, indeed, get a reasonably spherical dough ball, and I did get a good windowpane (where you stretch a sample to see if you can get it paper-thin without tearing.
Alton's Dough
Add to bowl in order:
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. olive oil
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup bread flour
1 tsp. instant yeast
1 cup bread flour
Knead 15 minutes on medium
Let rise covered in fridge 24 hours cut in half roll into balls and rest for 30 minutes covered.
If it won't stay stretched, let it rest 5 minutes.
Optional rest of 30 minutes after stretching for a fluffier crust.
We'll see how the pizzas turn out on this one. The pizzas pictured here are not from this crust, they're from my most recent variation on Jill Santopietro's crust.
One pepperoni, one half black olive & one half black olive with jalapeño. Both with Alfredo sauce.
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