Pizza Dough

Method

1. mix3 min
   by hand, in the bowl
   water + instant yeast + optional honey, then flour + salt stirred in until no dry flour remains and you have a rough shaggy mass — do not try to smooth it yet; salt tightens gluten immediately and fighting it now costs you ten minutes of kneading later. 00 flour works in place of bread flour and gives a softer, more tender chew; all-purpose gives a crust that tears rather than pulls.
2. rest20 min
   covered, room temperature
   the shaggy mass alone. The flour finishes absorbing the water and the gluten strands begin linking on their own, so the dough arrives at the kneading stage already half-developed and stops feeling like wet sand.
3. knead8 min
   lightly floured surface, or dough hook on low
   dough + optional olive oil, pushing and folding until it pulls off the counter clean and a stretched piece goes translucent before it tears. That translucent window is the gluten net; without it the dough cannot hold the gas it is about to make and will tear into holes when you open it.
4. proof60 min
   covered, room temperature
   dough in an oiled bowl until visibly puffed but not yet doubled. This warm head start wakes the yeast; the flavour work happens later and colder.
5. prep5 min
   divide into two 250 g pieces and drag each across the counter under a cupped hand until the surface is tight and glossy. That skin is what holds the ball round in the fridge — a slack, seam-up ball spreads into a puddle and opens into an oval.
6. ferment1440 min
   38–40°F, sealed containers
   balls, cold, for 24 hours (up to 72). The yeast nearly stalls while flour enzymes keep cutting starch into sugars and gluten slowly relaxes — this is simultaneously where the bready, faintly beery flavour and the browning sugars come from, and where the dough learns to stretch instead of snap back. Past 72 hours the gluten degrades and the ball goes soupy and smells of solvent.
7. rest120 min
   covered, room temperature
   balls out of the fridge until they no longer feel cool in the centre. Cold gluten is rigid; a fridge-cold ball tears at the middle the moment you stretch it.
8. prep5 min
   floured or semolina-dusted surface
   press each ball flat from the centre outward with fingertips and stretch it over the backs of your knuckles to about 10 inches, leaving the outer inch untouched. Never a rolling pin — it crushes out the gas cells you spent a day building and bakes into a cracker instead of a rim = two 10-inch bases, ready to top and bake as hot as the oven will go.