If Your Pizzas Look Like Amoebas

… this post is for you 🎉

Hello Pizza Friends,

Twelve years ago, one of my friends texted me the above photo along with a plea for help. While she had nailed the flavor of her homemade pizzas, her shaping could use some improvement (🤣).

My friend is not alone in this struggle. One of the biggest challenges for many home pizza makers is stretching dough balls into perfect or near-perfect rounds. Just yesterday a woman emailed me saying: I CANNOT SHAPE THE DOUGH into a pizza!

While stretching out a dough ball of course requires some technique and finesse, successfully doing so lies in what you do long before you even attempt to stretch it out. There are two key steps that will help you more successfully shape your dough into a round:

1. Ball up your dough properly. (This is what this post is dedicated to.)

2. Let your dough proof sufficiently at room temperature before even attempting to stetch it out.

There is a video below that will show you how to get your dough from this portioned state…

… to this balled state:

… this portioned state:

… to this balled state:

When you take the time to ball up your dough properly, and when you allow your dough to proof at room temperature sufficiently before even attempting to stretch it out, you’re setting yourself up for success:

Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Video: Balling up Dough

The video below is solely about balling up dough. If you are looking for help stretching your balled dough into a round, I have lots of other videos is previous posts. This one and this one include video guidance and there are others in the archives, too.

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Love pizza and salad? Find recipes, tips, and tricks in Pizza Night 🍕🍕🥗🥗

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