Pizza dough recipe without kneading

For pizza beginners like me, this dough is very easy as you just have to mix the ingredients and let it work itself in the fridge

This is an Ibán Yarza´s recipe, a Spanish bread expert and educational

If you follow me on social media, you saw how happy I was with the result. You can see my face below. The pizzas were fantastic and I´m sure there are a lot of things to improve but, for the first time, they were super tasty and the dough was crusty and well cooked through.

The recipe sounded so easy, just mix and wait, basically, that I was a bit reluctant… Sure there is something the recipe doesn´t say, or in the end, it won´t work… But, it worked!

This is the recipe.

Ingredients for 3 medium size pizzas

525g strong wheat flour
340g water
20g olive oil
11g salt
5g fresh yeast or 1,5g dry yeast

Method

AS we are not going to knead the dough, we dissolve the yeast in the water. When it´s well-hydrated, we mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl: the flour, the oil, and the salt.

We mix very well with our hands until we get a wet and uniform dough. Then we let it rest for 15 minutes. After that, we sprinkle a bit of flour on the counter (a bit, we don´t want to add more flour to the dough), transfer the dough to the working surface and fold it, stretching on of the sides of the dough and bring it to the center of the dough. We do the same with the other side, stretch and fold bringing it to the center of the dough. Let it rest for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, brush with olive oil 3 containers.

Once the dough has rested for 5 minutes, split the dough into three equal pieces and keep them in the containers. Cover them with the lid and keep them in the fridge, from 1 to 3 days. During this time, the dough is rising without kneading.

I had the dough for 2 and a half days approximately and this was the result.

Once you decide to use the dough, take it out of the fridge a couple of hours before baking it.

Preheat the oven to the maximum heat. In my case, it was 250C.

Spread a bit of flour over the working surface, take one of the doughs and cover each side with the flour and stretch it, shaping with your fingers until you get a thin and elastic dough. Then, put your favourite toppings and bake it.

I used my pizza stone for the barbecue but I put it at the bottom of the oven. If you don´t have a pizza stone, just put the pizza on a baking paper and drop it at the bottom of the oven. I baked it for 5 minutes and then I flip it around and bake for another 5 minutes.

The first pizza, a margherita, had a funny shape as I was a bit scared of managing the dough. However, the result was very good. Thin dough in the middle, the borders more bready and well cooked and juicy.

If you don{t have a pizza stone, Ibán Yarza recommends to put the pizza in a baking paper and drop it at the bottom of the oven to get the bottom done, baking for 3-4 minutes. Then, move the pizza to the top and cook it for another 3-4 minutes under the grill.

I thought to do that but maybe with the pizza stone, it worked in a different way. I just put the stone at the bottom of the oven and bake it for 4 minutes. Then, I saw that the part at the back of the oven was starting to rise and get brown so I decided not moving the pizza to the grill but carrying on baking using only the bottom part of the oven, and flipping around the pizza so each side of the border was for a couple of minutes at the back of the oven, that is hotter, so it was able to rise, get this burn bubbles and melt the toppings.