StatQuest: How to make a Mean Pizza Crust!!!

Key Takeaways

sometimes you've got to do what you got to do step quest hello and welcome to stat quest stat quest is brought to you by the friendly folks in the genetics department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill today we're going to talk about how to make a mean pizza crust Here I am in my kitchen and the first thing I need to do is measure out 500 grams of bread flour BAM and nailed it then I measure an eighth of a teaspoon of instant yeast and then I measure out 500 grams of water close enough then I just mix it all together that's all there is to do for the first step now we cover it and let it rest for 8 to 12 hours after waiting 8 to 12 hours I add another 500 grams of bread flour now I add 20 grams of salt lastly I add 200 grams of water now I mix the dough together I start by stirring it around but then I switched to a pinching motion where I use my thumb and index finger to pinch through the wet dough to get the dry flour all the way into the middle and I just pinch and stir and sort of grab I'm gonna move the dough around to try to get all of the flour and the salt and the new water corporated into the existing wet dough once I've combined all the new flour water and salt I've got a lot of sticky dough on my hand the way to get it off is to just run a little water on your hand you don't have to wash it off just get a little water in your hand and then go back to kneading just kind of reaching under you know folding the dough over and a lot of the dough that was stuck to your hand will start coming off and what I do is I do this a couple of times I'll get more water in my hand and I'll just need a little bit more and over time my hand will gradually get pretty clean now that I've got the dough off my hand I cover it up and let it rest for 15 minutes here's the dough after letting it rest for 15 minutes now I get a lot of water in my hands and I reach under the dough scoop under pull up and fold over then rotate 90 degrees and I do this four times so I've folded the dough over on itself four times put it in a nice little ball and then let it rest for another 15 minutes you need to do this every fifteen to thirty minutes for the next one to two hours the goal is to let the dough get kind of stretchy and also don't let the yeast start activating you'll know when you're done when you can start feeling little bubbles of air in the dough after one or two hours of folding every 15 to 30 minutes it's time to prepare the dough into little balls that can be made into pizza later on I start by pouring a little bit of oil on the dough and then I pour a little bit of oil and some Tupperware containers there's enough dough for six pizza crusts but what I like to do is make three pizzas and a loaf of bread now that I've prepared the containers I rub the oil on the dough and the divide the dough by half by pinching it right down the middle since I'm going to use half of this dough for a loaf of bread I fold it into a ball and then I put it in this wicker basket that I've put rice flour and bran flakes in this just makes it look fancy it's no big deal now I go back to the remaining dough and split it into three pieces then I shape each piece into a ball I then use that ball to rub the oil in the Tupperware around so everything's nice and coated with oil and then I just repeat for the next two pieces of dough once I've finished shaping each piece of dough I put the lids on Tupperware containers and I put the loaf of bread in a plastic bag it's one of those produce bags you get in the grocery store then I put it in the refrigerator and I let it rest for at least eight hours but you can actually let it rest for 24 or even a couple of days it's no big deal it also freezes well once I'm ready to make pizza I put a pizza stone as close to the broiler element as I can and I preheat it for 10 minutes on high now we're ready to make pizza I have a pizza peel and I spread a little cornmeal on top of it I want it to be nice and even now I get a piece of dough out of one of the toughest and I press it in to some flour just to get flour on one side the bottom side now I stretch the dough out into a nice round circle that I can use for a pizza once I have a nice shape for my pizza I spread a little bit of sauce on top then I add a little bit of cheese and then I add whatever toppings I have around the house once the pizza is ready to go I slide it on top of the pizza stone and turn the broiler down then I let it cook for five minutes and then turn the broiler back up and I watch it like a hawk for the next minute sometimes just 30 seconds it'll burn quick so keep your eye on it once the pizza's done I just scoop it out with a big pan that's all there is to it voila if you want to bake bread preheat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit with a cast-iron pot in there when it's preheated take the lid off and then flip the bread in and then cut slits in the top of the loaf now put the lid back on the pot and bake it for about 25 minutes after 25 minutes take the lid off the top of the pot and bake for another 10 minutes when the breads done baking pull it out of the oven and use a spatula to pop it out onto a cooling rack this bread tastes great fresh but you know what it tastes even better if you freeze it and then reheat it I have no idea why but it just tastes better that way hooray we've made it to the end of another exciting stat quest if you like this stat quest and want to see more like it feel free to subscribe tune in next time for another exciting stat quest