we made some pizza using frozen dough that they use at sams and it was really good. we wanna try this dough but we dont have a mixer with a dough hook. can you use a hand held mixer or just mix by hand? thx

Tim, the dough is too heavy to mix with a hand-held mixer. Here is how to do it by hand or in a food processor, if you have one.

Combine the flour, instant dry yeast (also called bread machine or quick-rising yeast) and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the water and mix as best you can with a wooden spoon until you get a very shaggy and somewhat dry-looking dough that is fairly evenly moistened. Place a sheet of lightly-oiled plastic wrap against the top of the dough in the bowl and cover it all with a towel. Let it stand for 20 minutes at room temperature. This will begin to rehydrate the flour and yeast and make it easier to knead.

Now you can either knead this dough by hand for about 5 to 10 minutes (pizza dough generally is not kneaded quite as thoroughly as bread doughs), or you can knead it in a food processor, if you have one:

To knead the dough in a food processor, depending on the size of the processor, cut the dough in half or quarters. Drop one portion of dough into the processor -- use the steel blade, not the plastic dough blade -- and process for 20 to 30 seconds, or just until the dough forms a smooth ball. Remove it from the processor and knead by hand briefly on a kitchen counter to cool it down. Set aside, covered. Repeat with each of the remaining portions of dough. Then hand-knead them all together for a minute or two and proceed with the recipe.

Rita

Tim,

Rita's right about the hand mixer. If you happen to have a bread machine you can mix dough with that also. That's what I've been using for the past year and it works pretty well.

Paul

thanks rita and paul. we're waiting on a replacement bowl for the processor. i think we still have an old bread machine. that will keep us going til we can get a nice mixer

Tim, let us know how your pizza comes out with pics of course.Doing one tonight on the grill. Looking forward to it

really stupid question here

Ceresota AP Flour (100%) 24.56 oz
Water (62%) 15.22 oz
IDY (0.33%) 0.76 tsp.
Salt (2%) 2.5 tsp
100% 62% .33% 2% of what?

When expressing the make up of a dough using baker's percentages, the weight of the flour component is expressed as "100%", and the weights of the other components as percentages relative to the flour. So, by weight, the water equals 62% of the weight of the flour (15.22/24.56 = .6197), and so on.