Pizza Dough Showdown

A while ago we tried 4 different pizza dough recipes when we did our Pizza Around the World date night... Here's how it went.

Pizza Dough 1: The 24 hour pizza dough

I continually wonder if I did something wrong with this recipe. I followed the directions to a T and in the end the crust was a little chewy but completely flat. John liked the thinness of it, but for me the combination of chewy and flat wasn't great. It almost seemed rubbery... Being that this is a recipe from Alton Brown (and he is amazing!) I might have to retry this one to make sure I did it right.

Here's pizza dough number one's recipe. 

Pizza Dough 2: The 8 hour pizza dough

I cannot say enough good things about this pizza dough. It was just like the dough we've had at fancier pizza restaurants. It was chewy but fluffy and crispy all at the same time. By far, my favorite type of pizza dough to eat! That being said, this one did take the most work, but in my mind, it was worth it.

The recipe for this pizza dough is found here.

Pizza Dough 3: The 2 hour pizza dough

This recipe came out of a restaurant copycat cookbook I have at home and is supposed to be just like California Pizza Kitchen's dough. This is the one I usually make for a pizza night at home, although if I remember to start early enough, I'll definitely be making the 8 hour dough recipe more often instead! In the end, this dough makes a good crust that holds its structure, but doesn't have as much depth as the 8 hour dough.

This cookbook can be found here.

Pizza dough 4: The 20 minute pizza dough

This one is actually the same recipe as my quick and easy breadsticks dough. It says in the notes for this recipe that it can also be used as a pizza dough... which is true. In the end though, I only make this dough if I forget to start the dough and dinner is in half an hour. It ends up not holding its structure very well and doesn't add much as far as flavor and texture go. It's a much better dough to make breadsticks out of. Just sayin'.

The recipe for this dough is found here.

 

When we actually did our pizza date night, I didn't take very many pictures of the pizza dough/crust... just junky night time pictures of the pizza. Haha! Just as I predicted would happen in that post, I actually hadn't made homemade pizza again until this past week. Annnnd I chose to make the 8 hour pizza dough. No surprise. It's really good! We also tried making a half portion of the recipe with whole wheat flour this time. Definitely not as good as white flour, but another option if it needs to be healthier.

After trying all of these out, I definitely will be making the 8 hour dough more often. The only tricky part now is remembering to get it started by 8 am while simultaneously getting 4 little kids up and ready for the day... Buuut, if you want something bad enough, you find a way to make it happen, right? I never thought that could apply to making pizza dough until now. Lol.