I've made my own pizza dough many times before. It's easy enough to do. I've never had good luck with using whole wheat flour though. Even using a 50:50 mix of whole wheat and white flour seems to result in heavy, dull, sadness dough. So, although I'm happy to use whole wheat flour other places I have, historically, stuck with white flour for pizza dough. This is fine as far as it goes, but I've been trying really hard to eat more whole grains, so I decided to give whole wheat crust another shot.

This time I turned to the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book for the recipe. And I'm pleased to say it was a resounding success! The dough was pleasantly supple and elastic. It baked up chewy and wonderful with just the right crust. And it didn't come out heavy and dense like my previous attempts at whole wheat pizza crust. It just looked and tasted like normal, wonderful, delicious crust. I won't say it was better than plain, white crust, but I wasn't necessarily going for better. I honestly, don't think it was noticeably different from white crust aside from the slightly darker colour.

Taste, texture, baking, handling were all just as good as anything I've made with white flour. I finally have a whole wheat pizza crust that can hold its own against the more processed version! I know pizza's never going to be the healthiest, most balanced meal, but I'm glad I can work at least a little more nutrition into it and use ingredients that have been processed a little less. It's a small thing, but it pleases me anyway.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

From the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 c. warm water
• 1 tsp. honey
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast
• 900g hard (bread/strong/high grade) whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• up to 1/2 c. additional warm water¹

Directions

1. Dissolve the honey in the first measure of warm water.
2. Add the yeast. Set aside for 5-10 minutes.
3. Combine flour and salt and mix well.
4. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.
5. Stir from centre outward, gradually incorporating the flour.
6. Once the flour is mostly incorporated, add the oil.
7. Turn out onto a counter top or other convenient surface and knead, working in any bits of flour that haven't yet been incorporated into the dough.
8. Once all the flour has been incorporated, begin working in the additional water. Wet your hands periodically and continue kneading. The dough should be very soft and supple. Work in as much water as possible.
9. Knead for a total of 20-30 minutes.
10. Shape dough into a ball and place smooth side up in a large bowl.
11. Cover and let rise at room temperature².
12. Wet a finger and poke the dough to make a 1cm (~1/2") hole. If the hole does not fill in at all, it's ready to be knocked back³.
13. Turn the dough out onto your work surface and press out all the accumulated gas. Knead it for a few strokes if you like, although it shouldn't need much at this point. I just like to do it as a way of making sure I've got all the gas out.
14. Shape dough into a ball again and place back in the covered bowl to rise again. Second rise should be ~1/2 the time of the first, give-or-take.
15. Once it's done its second rise, it's ready to be shaped. This should be enough dough to make two 36cm (14") round pizzas or a large 46cm x 30cm (18"x12") thick-crust pizza/flatbread.
16. Divide the dough up according to how many pizzas/breads you'd like to make.
17. Shape each piece into a smooth ball and let rest, covered, for 10 minutes.
18. Shape into desired form and bake.

For Pizzas (with a Pizza Stone)

1. Place pizza stone in oven.
2. Preheat oven to 260°C (500°F).
3. Dust pizza peel generously with cornmeal.
4. Pick up a portion of dough and stretch it to the desired size⁴.
5. Give the peel a light jiggle to make sure pizza is loose and will slide well. If it's stuck, address it now, before it's topped and things get messy.
6. Once the desired size and shape is achieved, allow it to rest for a few minutes.
7. Spread with your favourite sauce (tomato, pesto, olive oil, barbecue, etc.) and top generously with shredded mozzarella.
8. Add any desired meat or vegetable toppings and, if you like, finish with a sprinkle of Parmesan.
9. Open the oven and flick the pizza from the peel onto the stone. As long as the dough hasn't stuck to the peel anywhere, the cornmeal should act almost like little ball bearings to help it slide from one surface to the other.
10. Baking time will depend somewhat on crust thickness. I found 7 minutes at 260°C (500°F) to be about right for a medium crust thickness. For a very thin crust, you may only need 5 minutes. Or you could even try preheating the stone in the oven and then switching to the broiler once once the pizza goes in. The stone should give good bottom heat and the broiler will ensure the cheese gets properly melted and toasty.

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¹ The original recipe advises working the full 1/2 c. of water into the dough during kneading. I found I only needed about half of it (1/4 c.) to make a pleasingly soft dough. Use your judgement. ^Back
2 How long the dough needs to rise will depend on room temperature (and possibly how fresh/active your yeast is). Mine only needed ~1 hour at ~25°C (78°F). If your kitchen is cooler, you may be able to let it go for longer. Possibly 2 hours or more in a room that's only 18-20°C (64-68°F). You can estimate how long it'll take based on the temperature, but watch and test the dough to determine when it's ready to knock back rather than relying solely on a timer. ^Back
3 If the dough sighs and sinks back slightly around the hole, it's probably slightly over-proofed. Not a huge deal for the first rise, but try to catch it before this point on the next one. ^Back
4 I find stretching tends to work much better than rolling. Rolling is more likely to lead to ending up with an unbaked pizza stuck to your peel/work surface. You don't necessarily have to toss it. I like to hold it sideways and let gravity to part of the work. You can also leave it on the peel/work surface and just stretch it horizontally along the surface. The important part is to stretch rather than press. ^Back