Wheat Pizza Crust Dough

in Bread, DIY, Pizza

We’re super picky about our pizza. When we’re going out for lunch or a no-leftovers dinner, we head out to the suburbs and hit up Locatelli’s. I’ll spare you the usual Shakespearean sonnet that typically follows mentioning the name of the restaurant. If you know us, you’ve heard it plenty of times before. Best pizza in Houston, though. Seriously.

When we want to make sure that we have leftovers for the next day, we head inside the loop to Candelari’s on Washington. Second best pizza in Houston but it’s the best pizza to reheat the next day. Seriously. What I love about Candelari’s, in addition to their super fab proximity to our friends’ place, is that they have wheat crust. And bonus: my husband likes it.

I’ve written about my love for this pizza dough recipe, and the cookbook in which I found it, before. We think that Gourmet’s Basic Pizza Dough yields the perfect pizza crust.

A few changes to the recipe yields a more nutritious version but still every single bit as perfect as the all-white version.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
1 pkg dry active yeast
1 tsp sugar
3/4 cups flour AP flour, plus more for dredging and dusting
1 cup whole wheat flour, plus more for dredging and dusting
3/4 cups warm water (110-120F), divided
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp olive oil, plus more for brushing

Stir together yeast, sugar, 1 TBSP AP flour and 1/4 cup warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let stand 5 minutes. (Pour out and start over if your yeast doesn
t get frothy.)

Add 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup AP flour, salt, oil, and remaining 1/2 cup warm water and mix with the dough hook until smooth. Add remaining AP flour and knead on medium-high for 8 minutes (the dough will be sticky and might not completely come off the bottom of the bowl). Form into a ball, place on flour-dusted surface and cover. Let rise until doubled, about 1 1/4 hours.

Preheat oven to 450.

Do not punch down dough. Carefully dredge ball in a bowl of flour to coat and transfer to a dry work surface. Hold one edge of the dough in the air with both hands and let the bottom edge touch the work surface. Carefully move hands around the edge of the dough (like turning a steering wheel) to stretch the dough to 10-12 inches. Lay dough on a lightly floured surface and gently stretch into a 14-inch round.

Lightly brush dough with oil and bake for 7 minutes. Remove pizza from the oven, top, and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown.

Source: Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook, 2004
Yields: 1 14-inch pizza crust

6 comments… add one
  • Ahhh, if only I wasn’t gluten-free 🙁

  • I love whole wheat pizza dough! Thanks for the recipe. When I sub in whole wheat flour for regular it sometimes gets a little chewy.

  • Thank you for posting this! I’m definitely going to be trying this soon as I have some yeast to work with. I’m assuming this is an ideal dough for thin crust? Or better with a thicker, pan crust? Can’t wait to try it!

  • You have me craving pizza now! I would like to try a whole wheat base, so I am going to print this one out. I assume you can just knead this by hand until it reaches the right consistency?

  • Joelen – that’s the cool thing. The crust is fantastic thin but it also isn’t too chewy if you keep it a little thicker.

    Holler – You absolutely can knead it by hand, the original directions from Gourmet are mixer-less (you stir the ingredients in a bowl and then knead by hand). But I don’t like to get my hands dirty 🙂

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