Some years ago, I learned that pizza dough just needs a few ingredients in the correct proportion. Those 5 ingredients are flour, water, yeast, oil, and salt. Over the years, I experimented a lot with different flour types and different proportions of water to flour. Later learned that time is also an important factor for kneading the dough, but also for letting it rest and rise.
These days, I use the great PizzaApp+ (iOS / Android) for calculating the proportion, depending on how many pizzas I want to make. Ok, the proportion for 5 pizzas is now stuck in my brain, but occasionally, I require more or less pizzas.
I also use at least two different flours, 00 and semolina. The Proportion is of the flour is 85% 00 and 15% semolina. The hydration of the dough is 65% of 100% flour, while I use 2,5% oil and 3% salt. The amount of yeast always depends on if I start a day before and let the dough rest at least 12h in the fridge or if it just rest 4–5 hours at room temperature.
Kneading also takes some time, don’t stop too early. I normally knead the dough ~10-15 min with the machine before kneading it some more time by hand. A good indicator is, if the dough still sticks to the bowl or if it swirls „free“. Before I portion the dough or let it rest in the fridge, I also let it rest an hour at room temperature and in this time do twice a knead and fold.
In the end, I use this again as my #KitchenZen meditation time. There is no need to make it as complicated as I do. Again, just 5 ingredients, kneading the dough, letting it rest and you will have a great pizza. That’s what we want, don’t we?