Pizza is the most popular food on earth and the most frequently ruined. Most of what goes wrong happens before a single topping lands, because pizza is a vehicle for sauce and toppings and the vehicle is dough. Get the dough right and the rest is assembly. Get it wrong and you have condiments on cardboard. Good dough disappears underneath what it carries, which is the entire trick.
So start there. Pizza dough is four ingredients. Flour, water, salt, yeast.
Wheat flour contains two proteins, glutenin and gliadin. Add water and they bond into gluten, the elastic network that traps gas during fermentation and steam in the oven. More protein means more gluten potential. Italian 00 flour (the “00” refers to grind fineness, not protein content, a fact butchered by most pizza blogs) usually runs 11 to 12.5% protein. American bread flour runs 12 to 14%. All-purpose lands around 10 to 11%, though King Arthur’s clocks in at 11.7%, which is why it punches above its category. Protein dictates style…
