Simple, Fast Wood Fired Pizza Dough Recipe for a Thin, Crispy Crust

This is a simple, fast wood fired pizza dough that makes a thin, crispy crust and bakes in a few minutes on the hot floor of a brick oven or masonry heater bake oven. The recipe comes from Marge Padgitt, CCS, NFI, M.A., President of HearthMasters, Inc. in Independence, Missouri, who shared it with the masonry heater and brick oven community in August 2013 after using it at one of her workshops. At Solid Rock Masonry in Duluth, Minnesota, we have baked it for years in the ovens we build, and below you will find Marge’s original recipe, my double and triple batch notes, gram weights, the flour and sauce we use, and how I bake it in a wood fired oven. It is not an artisan, slow fermented dough, and I am not a bread expert. It is a quick, time tested dough that has worked every time at our pizza gatherings since 2013.

By Eric Moshier – Certified Heater Mason, Third-Generation Mason, MHA Technical Committee Member, ASTM E1602 Masonry Heater Group Member

Credit Where It Is Due: Marge’s Secret Pizza Dough

Marge titled it her secret pizza dough, with the warning that she would have to kill you if she told you. She told everyone anyway, and we are grateful. Marge and her husband Gene Padgitt, a Certified Heater Mason, have been part of the masonry heater and wood fired oven world for a long time, and this dough is one of the small gifts that circulates in that community. She also noted that this is not a traditional dough, but worth trying if you are adventurous and in a time crunch. I agree on both counts. The olive oil gives a crust that is crisp on the bottom and tender inside, closer to a cracker-thin pie than a puffy Neapolitan.

Wood Fired Pizza Dough Ingredients

Marge’s original is the single batch and calls for King Arthur all-purpose and bread flour. The double and triple columns are my handwritten notes from the copy I keep in the kitchen. Weigh the flour if you can; a cup of flour can vary a lot depending on how it is scooped.

Ingredient	Single (Marge’s original)	Double	Triple
King Arthur all-purpose flour	1 1/4 cup (141 g / 5 oz)	2 1/2 cups (282 g)	3 3/4 cups (423 g)
King Arthur bread flour	1 1/4 cup (141 g / 5 oz)	2 1/2 cups (282 g)	3 3/4 cups (423 g)
Olive oil	2 Tbsp (27 g)	4 Tbsp (54 g)	6 Tbsp (81 g)
Salt	1/4 tsp	1 tsp	3/4 tsp
Active dry yeast	2 1/4 tsp (7 g, one packet)	4 1/2 tsp (14 g)	6 3/4 tsp (21 g)
Very warm water, 100 F or more	1 cup (237 g)	2 cups (474 g)	3 cups (711 g)
Yield	6 small or 3 larger pizzas	12 small or 6 larger	18 small or 9 larger

The Flour and Sauce We Use: Caputo 00 and Pomi

In our kitchen we make this wood fired pizza dough with Caputo Pizzeria Tipo 00 soft wheat flour from Italy in place of the two King Arthur flours, using the same total weight: 282 g for a single batch, 564 g for a double, and 846 g for a triple. Tipo 00 is milled very fine and is the flour Italian pizzerias build their dough around, and it handles the heat of a wood fired oven well. If the dough feels too sticky with 00 flour, work in a little more flour on the bench until it is smooth and pliable.

We have also made this recipe with King Arthur flour quite a bit, just as Marge wrote it, and it works out wonderfully. If you would rather use an American flour, it is a great choice.

For sauce we use Pomi Pizza Sauce, made from Italian tomatoes and sold in a 14.1 oz (400 g) can. It goes on straight from the can. Spread it thin; a thin crust can only carry a light layer of sauce before it goes soft.

Fresh Garden Tomatoes on Top

Late in the season we pick tomatoes from our garden here in Duluth and lay thin slices right on top of the pizza, a style I have seen in Chicago. Slice them about 1/4 inch thick or thinner, salt them lightly, and let them drain on a towel for 10 to 15 minutes so their water does not soak into the thin crust. Lay the slices on top of the cheese, where the heat of the wood fired oven roasts them.

Our Go-To Topping: Homemade Spicy Italian Sausage

The sausage on most all our pizzas is homemade. We make it all the time from the New York-Style Spicy Hot Italian Sausage recipe on page 82 of Bruce Aidells’ Complete Sausage Book, and it is the best pizza sausage we have found. It is pork butt and pork back fat seasoned with fennel or anise seed, garlic, red pepper flakes, cayenne, and black pepper, with an optional splash of anise liqueur. The full recipe is in the book, and the book is worth having on the shelf if you cook with a wood fired oven.

Aidells suggests poaching it and slicing it onto homemade pizza. On our pies it goes on as small balls about the size of your thumb, pinched straight from the bulk sausage, and we always cook them ahead of time. However you shape it, cook the sausage before it goes on the pizza. A thin crust is done in a few minutes, which is not long enough to cook raw pork through.

How to Make the Pizza Dough

1. Proof the yeast. Put the warm water and yeast in the mixer bowl and let it sit for 3 minutes. If it bubbles up, the yeast is active.
2. Start the batter. Add 1/2 cup of the flour, the salt, and the olive oil. Mix with the dough hook for 30 seconds, then on high speed for 3 minutes.
3. Add the rest of the flour. Stop the mixer, add the remaining flour, mix on low for a few seconds to bring it in, then on low for 6 minutes or until the dough is smooth and pliable.
4. Kneading by hand? Plan on about 8 minutes of kneading to reach the same smooth, pliable dough.
5. Divide. Form a single batch into 6 dough balls for small single-serving pizzas, or cut it into thirds for larger pizzas. Cover the balls and let them rest before stretching them out thin.

This is a soft dough. A light dusting of flour or semolina on the peel keeps it sliding off cleanly into the oven.

How to Bake Wood Fired Pizza Dough in a Masonry Oven

Because this dough contains olive oil, it browns faster than a lean Neapolitan dough, so it does best on a hot floor that is not at the very peak of the fire. In a wood fired bake oven, I fire the oven until the dome clears, push the coals to the side or back, and bake on the hearth floor. Stretch the dough thin, top it lightly, and launch it. A small pie is usually done in a few minutes; turn it once with the peel so the side facing the fire does not scorch. Heavy toppings make a thin crust soggy, so go easy.

If you have a masonry heater with a black oven, the same dough works in the firebox oven while the fire burns down, and a white oven bakes it more gently after the fire is out. Our what is a masonry heater page explains how these ovens store and release heat.

This dough is the quick option. If you want to learn to really use a wood fired oven, including slower fermented doughs, get Richard Miscovich’s From the Wood-Fired Oven: New and Traditional Techniques for Cooking and Baking with Fire (Chelsea Green, 2013). It is the book we recommend for learning how to make dough and how to cook in an oven. Miscovich teaches you to get the most out of a single firing by cooking in order of temperature, from pizza and live-fire roasting while the oven is hottest to bread, roasts, and braises as the heat falls, and even drying wood for the next fire.

Tips for a Better Wood Fired Pizza Crust

• Use water that is very warm, 100 F or a little more, but not hot enough to kill the yeast.
• Stretch it thin by hand, not with a rolling pin. Every pizzaiolo I have cooked with at a wood fired oven cringes when a rolling pin comes out. Pull and spread the dough evenly with your hands on a well floured peel, or toss it if you have the knack. I am not a thrower, but I can spread it out pretty evenly right on the peel. This recipe is built for a crisp crust, not a thick, bready one.
• Make the small single-serving size when friends are over. Everyone builds their own and the oven turns them out fast.
• A new oven needs proper curing fires before you push it hot for pizza. See our curing fires notes.

How Do You Make Gluten Free Wood Fired Pizza Dough?

When we bake for gluten free guests, we use Caputo Fioreglut, a gluten free flour from the Caputo mill in Naples, Italy. We found it during COVID, when we were traveling and camping between heater builds. We stopped at Antica Forma, a wood fired Italian restaurant in Vernal, Utah, near Dinosaur National Monument, and that is where we first had it. It makes the best gluten free pizza crust we have ever had. My wife eats gluten free, and since that trip this is the only pizza dough we have made for her. We follow the pizza method Caputo prints on the back of the bag, which is written for the same high heat a wood fired oven delivers.

Gluten Free Pizza Dough Ingredients

These are Caputo’s quantities from the bag, by weight. The half batch is simply the bag recipe divided by two. The bag does not name a type of yeast; we use active dry yeast, the same yeast Marge’s recipe calls for. A kitchen scale is a must here; gluten free dough does not forgive measuring by the cup.

Ingredient	Caputo’s recipe (from the bag)	Half batch
Caputo Fioreglut gluten free flour	1,000 g	500 g
Water	800 g	400 g
Active dry yeast	15 g	7.5 g
Oil	35 g	17.5 g
Salt	25 g	12.5 g
Yield	About 7 dough balls of 250 to 280 g	About 3 dough balls

How to Make the Gluten Free Pizza Dough

1. Mix. In a stand mixer with the flat beater (paddle), mix the Fioreglut, yeast, water, and salt on speed 2 for 5 minutes.
2. Add the oil. Add the oil and mix 2 more minutes on speed 1.
3. Chill. Rest the dough for 30 minutes in the refrigerator at about 4 C (39 F).
4. Ball it. Divide the dough into 250 to 280 g pieces, shape them into balls, and put them in well-covered containers in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours and up to 24 hours. Wrapping each ball in plastic film keeps it from drying out.
5. Roll it out. Dust the bench with Caputo Fior di Riso rice flour, roll out each ball, and add your toppings.
6. Bake hot. Caputo calls for 698 F for 2 to 3 minutes, which is right in the range of a fired wood oven hearth.

If you are baking for someone with celiac disease, bake the gluten free pizzas first on a freshly brushed hearth floor and use a clean peel. Wheat flour from earlier pies stays on the oven floor and the peel. Caputo also notes on the bag that its procedure is a guideline only, so adjust to your oven.

Build an Oven for Your Wood Fired Pizza Dough

Solid Rock Masonry designs and builds wood fired bake ovens, pizza ovens, and masonry heaters with integrated bake ovens throughout northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. You can see finished work in our project gallery, learn to build your own at one of our masonry heater and oven workshops, or start with an SR Core kit through our DIY program. If you are planning a heater with an oven, the masonry heater planning guide is the place to begin. For more on the craft and the people behind it, visit the Masonry Heater Association.

Thank you, Marge, for sharing your secret.

Solid Rock Masonry LLC
5347 Howard Gnesen Road, Duluth, MN 55803
218-343-2978 | eric@solidrockmasonry.com | www.solidrockmasonry.com