Why is my Pizza Dough always too sticky to knead?

Question

I have tried to make pizza dough by hand a couple of times now but every time after mixing the ingredients the dough is far too sticky to knead, it is more like a batter than dough. I have watched videos on youtube of people making it and it is nothing like how mine turns out.

The ingredients I am using are:

• 225g Bread Flour
• 140ml Water
• 1 tsp Dried Active Yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp olive oil

I have tried just mixing everything together at once, and I have also tried mixing the water, yeast and sugar together first then adding.

Can anyone see anything wrong with the quantities I am using in this recipe or is there something else that I should be doing to actually get dough that I can knead? As I said, it is so sticky that it will just stick to everything it touches unless I constantly add flour (on my hands and board).

Answer

I am an Indian and we make dough for everyday bread at home. It's easy to knead dough; you just have to take care while adding water. Do not add all the water you have, and add water slowly and steadily. For pizza dough I follow these steps:

• Mix yeast in warm water, add sugar to this water. Observe this mixture - as soon as you see bubbles, it is ready to be used for kneading dough.
• Add oil and salt to flour along with the yeast you have prepared.
• I use a spoon to keep mixing the flour and add spoonfuls of water, I keep some flour handy in case I have accidentally added too much water.

I keep kneading the dough gently and add water or flour as needed. This does require some practice.

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