Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

A fairly simple recipe that our family uses quite often for a nice tasting 14 inch pizza pie.  The ingredients can easily be doubled to get two pizzas for those larger gatherings or to parbake and freeze the second.

The time needed to complete making this dough is roughly 1 1/2 hours, with about 10-15 minutes of actual work if you have a electric mixer, which breaks down like this. 

measuring first ingredients <5 minutes
activate yeast ~5 minutes
mixing dough 5-10 minutes
letting it rise 45-60 minutes
flattening out the dough 5-10 minutes

now onto the recipe...

Ingredients:
1 tsp Yeast
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Olive oil + extra for coating the dough
1 cup Bread Flour
1 - 1 1/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 cup Water (Warm, 100F)

Kitchen Stuff:
Electric Mixer with dough hook. 
measuring spoons/cups (tsp/cup)
plastic wrap
Pizza Pan/stone

In your mixer bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and warm water.  Give this a stir for about a minute then let it sit and activate for about 5 minutes

Add the oil, 1 cup of bread flour and salt into the mixer bowl.  Turn on the mixer and let it stir until all the flour becomes moistened.  Start to add the whole wheat flour, about 1/4 of a cup at a time, until the dough completely pulls away from the bottom of the mixer bowl - but it should still be a little sticky.

Coat the dough ball with some additional oil.  What I did this time was tilt the electric mixer up, pour about a tablespoon of oil into the bowl and the squeeze the dough off the hook, and then roll the dough ball around in the oil.

Remove the dough hook, and the mixer bowl from the base.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and place someplace warm.  I use the inside of my oven with the light on for a little extra warmth.

In 45 - 60 minutes, the dough ball should have just about doubled in size.

Lightly flour your working area with some flour ( you don't HAVE to write instructables in it).

Also, prepare your pizza pan by brushing a little oil and then lightly dust it with flour.

Now transfer your dough ball onto the flour, and starting about 1/2 -3/4 of an inch from the outside of the ball (however thick you like your crust), begin to flatten/press the dough down (see image 2 of this step) by:
tucking your thumbs in, and joining your hands together by your index fingers and pressing down
travel your hands all around the exterior of the dough ball, slightly turning the dough (counter)clockwise after each press
use the same pressing method for the rest/center of the dough.

This presses out most/all of the possible air bubbles.


Pick your dough up by lifting one side, sliding your hand and forearm under the dough, and lifting it up.  And like a real pizza person, transfer the dough back and forth between your arms a couple times - this increases the diameter of the dough.

Finally rest your dough on your prepared pizza pan and you are ready to top with sauce cheese and anything else you please.  To bake, preheat an oven to 400F and bake 20-25 minutes, until the center has browned and you can lift the pizza up and see a nicely browned bottom too.

Enjoy!