The Kitchen Appliance That Makes Perfect Pizza Dough A Snap

There are few kitchen projects more fun, we'd argue, than making pizza at home. From kneading and raising the dough to make a perfectly seasoned, perfectly thickened sauce, to — perhaps the best part — picking out all your favorite toppings and combining them into a symphony, pizza-baking is a delightful, though somewhat-labor intensive, culinary endeavor. But depending on how from scratch you choose to go, homemade pizza can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. 

If you've started with a store-bought crust, jarred sauce, and already-grated cheese, you'll be chowing down in under 20 minutes. However, if you're going all the way, creating your own yeasted dough, stirring together your own pizza sauce, and grating and crumbling your way through a selection of cheeses, the pizza-loving pals who will be joining you in enjoying your creation will have to wait a little while. Certainly, the trickiest and most time-consuming part of making pizza is the dough. 

According to 11 Inch Pizza, mistakes in that arena range from not letting the dough rest, not kneading it enough, and using a rolling pin — as opposed to your fingers — to stretch the dough out into a circle. Thankfully, however, a kitchen appliance that's likely sitting on your counter right now can make whipping up supple, easy-to-shape pizza dough a walk in the park.

What aspiring home baker among us hasn't found ourselves crouched over a ball of ragged, refusing-to-cooperate pizza dough when all we wanted was something soft, pliable, and easy to work into a perfectly round circle? Pizza dough can be tricky to make at home, but if the approach of kneading it by hand or in a mixer has failed you, then the good news is that your countertop food processor can really help you out. Although you might typically turn to this device for slicing, dicing, and shredding, Serious Eats shares that the appliance knocks out smooth, supple and easily stretchable dough. The type that won't refuse to budge nor tear as you're working it, which can go a long way towards making your home pizza-baking as quick and easy as possible. 

The outlet explains that because a food processor's blade whips the dough around so quickly — much more than your hands or the hook of a stand mixer — much sturdier gluten develops in the dough, making it that much easier to work with. Because the dough is exposed to less air during the more rapid kneading process, it oxidizes less, as well, as creating better flavor in the cooked pizza crust. The outlet's recipe for New York-style pizza dough calls for a mere 30-second processing in the machine, after which the dough should rest in the fridge for a day before becoming the base for your picture-perfect pie.