Bret’s New York-Style Pizza Dough

Dissolve sugar into the warm water and stir in yeast. Weigh flour into mixer bowl and stir in the salt. When bubbly, pour yeast into the flour and stir with the dough hook on low until fully incorporated. Cover and rest 30 minutes. Add olive oil and knead for 9 to 12 minutes until smooth and elastic. Cover and let dough rise for an hour or so.

Divide dough in half. Stretch and form each half into a ball. Brush liberally with olive oil, and place dough balls into sealable containers (at least 1½ quarts each). Let dough rise in the refrigerator overnight or for up to 3 days. (For pizza the same day, skip the refrigeration and let rise about 2 more hours: structure and flavor may be different, but subtly.)

Gently turn a dough ball out onto a lightly-floured surface. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to come to room temperature, about 2 hours. Place a pizza stone or steel on the center rack of the oven. Heat to 475° F for at least 45 minutes for the stone or steel to get sufficiently hot.

Start pressing a ridge for the crust around the dough’s circumference. Use fingers (not palms) to press into the center of the dough, starting to flatten and stretch it. Flip the dough over and continue stretching with just the fingers. Pick up the dough and gently toss between hands, rotating the dough, letting gravity stretch it. Keep flipping and stretching the dough until the disk reaches the desired size.

Generously dust a pizza peel with corn meal or semolina and re-form the dough’s disk onto it. Work quickly to minimize sticking: add sauce, then cheese, then toppings. Jiggle the peel to fully loosen the pizza. Open the oven and jiggle and slide the pizza off the peel onto the stone or steel. Bake until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is browned (7 to 12 minutes).

Topping Notes: Sauce should be room temperature to prevent a gummy dough texture. Freshly-shredded low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella congeals best. Slice vegetable toppings thinly so that they can be cooked in the short bake time. Pre-cook raw meats and any toppings with high moisture content (e.g., mushrooms, fresh-sliced tomato).