Cole Cooks: New York Style Pizza Dough
My favorite type of pizza is New York style thin crust pizza. This is actually a pizza you can make at home because you don’t need the 700-degree plus temperatures required by Neapolitan pizzas. This is the recipe for New York Style Pizza Dough.
This recipe came pretty much direct from the book American Pie by Peter Reinhart. This book has recipes for all kinds of pizza styles. There are about 15 different dough recipes for all styles of pizza.
Reinhart describes it as the type of dough you will find at any place in New York City that sells pizza by the slice.
A key to this recipe is using bread flour or high-gluten flour. This is different from the “00” flour used in Neapolitan pizzas. This dough also uses oil and sugar (or honey), a no-no in Naples pizza.
Serious Eats has a discussion and recipe for NY-style pizza. Like myself, the well-respected author claims to prefer NY-style to Neapolitan pizza. I like them both but having grown up with NY-style, it is definitely my favorite.
The Serious Eats recipe is almost exactly the same as the Peter Reinhart recipe. I have always followed the Reinhart recipe so I stick closely to that one.
You can use a stand mixer or mix by hand. Over the years, our Kitchen Aid mixer has broken three times trying to mix various dough. We have learned to rely on our Cuisinart food processor for mixing. Now, most recipes I read suggest mixing this type of dough in a food processor.
Check out our Cuisinart Food Processor Review for more info.
Once it forms a ball in the food processor you can knead it by hand for just 2 to 3 minutes. Make you sure you do this on a flour coated surface. If the dough is too sticky you can also add more flour. If it is not sticky enough you can add water. But only add a little water at a time.
The goal is for the dough to pass what Reinhart calls the windowpane test. This is where you stretch the dough until you can see through it without it breaking.
This recipe will make three 12-inch pizzas. The best plan is to make a batch or dough of dough in advance. You can refrigerate them for a day or freeze them for 3 months. If you make the dough on the same day you need to start about 6 hours before you want to eat.
Making pizza at home is not a simple process. The only reason I do it is because it is a fun cooking project with the kids.
For our most recent homemade pizza project, our 12-year old son Grady did everything himself. The only thing I did was show him how to toss the first dough ball and slide it in the oven. You can see his pizza making here.
New York Style Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 5 cups bread flour
- 1 ½ tablespoon honey or sugar
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons instant yeast
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 ¾ cups warm water 70 F
Instructions
- In a food processor combine flour, salt and yeast. Pulse several times to combine. Add olive oil, honey and water. Process until a ball forms (15-30 seconds). Once a ball forms process for another 15 seconds.
- Remove ball to a floured surface and knead by hand for 3-5 minutes. If dough is too sticky add more flour. If dough is too dry add more water. The dough needs to pass the windowpane test where when stretched it forms a paper-thin surface you can see through.
- Divide the dough into three equal pieces. Brush with olive oil. Place each dough ball in its own bag and place in the refrigerator for use the next day (or freeze for later use).
- If using dough on the same day let sit in the bags on the counter for one hour to expand. Reshape them into balls and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
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