I love Jim Lahey’s pizza dough recipe, but then I love pretty much any of his bread recipes. His pizza dough is simple, so delicious, and turns out perfect every time I make it. It’s my go to pizza dough recipe for pizza night. But lately I have been craving, and therefore playing with, a nuttier more earthy version made with whole wheat flour instead of the standard all-purpose. It is quite a bit denser than it’s original, but it still only uses four simple ingredients and takes the same “short” amount of time to make. If you are counting actual working time, you do very little, but altogether it’s at least a four hour process. A four hour process that is well worth planning for.
The directions are almost verbatim from Jim Lahey’s appearance on the Martha Stewart show with a few alterations from me.
whole wheat pizza dough
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon yeast
large pinch salt
1/2 cup water
flour or cornmeal, for dusting
Combine flour, yeast, salt, and water in bowl. Dough should be “shaggy and rough” but not super wet. Add another teaspoon or two of flour if needed. Stir together, cover, and let dough rest in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 3 hours. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, fold in half, and cover with plastic wrap or a clean, damp kitchen towel. Let stand until doubled in size, 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Place a pizza stone on the lowest rack of oven and preheat to 550 degrees for 25 minutes. Flatten dough into a disk that is thicker in the center than at the edges. Using your fingers, gently pull on the edges of the dough to form a small circle; dough should still be thicker in the center. Drape dough over both hands, and using your knuckles, work dough out from the center into a large circle. Alternately you can use a rolling pin.
Carefully transfer dough to hot pizza stone or dusted pizza peel. If you put the dough directly on the stone, you must work very quickly. If you use a pizza peel you should still work quickly, but no need to work quite as quickly or with the oven blazing in your face. Top dough with cheeses and other toppings. Bake pizza until slightly browned, about 10 minutes.
Using a pizza peel, remove pizza from oven and drizzle with some good olive oil; serve immediately.
