Once, at the stroke of the midnight hour, I was craving for a pizza! I had almost all the ingredients to prepare the pizza recipe. But I opened the freezer and found the block of fresh yeast missing!
I work with a lot of fresh yeast to bake my bread. It was disheartening to see the sight of an empty freezer staring back at me. I could have waited for a day to buy a pack of fresh yeast. But the chances of its availability during the lockdown period was less to none at all.
Then, I thought of doing what most people do to satiate their pizza craving; make a pizza out of bread slice. Well, it was not a bad idea at the time afterall it is one of the easy dinner ideas.
But Nah! I wanted the Dominos and Pizza Hut style pizza and not a make-do one on a stale slice of bread. I then started to wreck my brain on what can replace yeast in the dough?
You see when you are hungry and craving for the perfect food, your mind works in super-fast ways. And As they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions, I too invented my version of no-yeast pizza dough!
No yeast = No pizza?
I used to think exactly this. No yeast = no pizza. But this craving of mine changed my thinking. You can completely replace yeast in dough by using other leavening agents.
Leavening agents are ingredients that help the doughs and batters rise. Yeast is a biological leavening agent. During the fermentation process, it converts sugar into carbon dioxide. This further helps in the leavening of doughs.
You can make the dough rise without yeast by using other leavening agents such as:
• baking powder
• baking soda
• vinegar
• natural fermentation of flour and water (used for sourdough bread)
• alcohol
Yogurt is another awesome replacement for yeast. Yogurt or plain home curd is already fermented.
But when you make pizza dough without yeast and baking powder, use the curd which is a day or two old. This is for the extra sourness and extra fermentation in your no-yeast pizza dough.
My no-yeast pizza dough has all the possible leavening agents. And you can use these to replace yeast in a pizza dough:
• Baking powder
• Baking Soda
• Vinegar
• 2 days old curd
By the way, I found a unique pizza dough recipe made without yeast but with beer. Do check out this beer pizza dough!
Yeast or No-yeast
It’s true, pizza dough with yeast will taste heavenly. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make pizza dough without yeast.
Pizza dough with yeast will take you hours to make the pizza. With yeast in pizza dough, you need to:
• Activate the yeast
• Give the dough rest for hours
• Shape the pizza and then again give it rest
If you are in the mood of baking, then by all means try with yeast. But this no-yeast pizza dough recipe will save you hours and hours of waiting to get your hands on a pizza!
Yes, you require yeast to make the pizza dough rise. But If you don’t put yeast in pizza dough, it’s completely fine. Replace the yeast with any of above mentioned leavening substances. You will get a perfect rise in the pizza dough.
How do you make pizza dough from scratch without yeast?
No-Yeast Pizza Dough
Equipment
- 9 inch pizza pan or baking tin
- Oven
- Pan/ kadhai (if baking on gas)
- Stove
- Pizza cutter (to gobble up the pizza!)
Ingredients
- 100 grams Curd/ Plain yogurt shouldbe a day or two old
- 5 ml Vinegar/lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon Honey
- 145 grams All-purpose flour
- 5 grams salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 5 grams mixed dried herbs pizza seasoning, oregano etc.
- 10-15 ml refined oil
- Butter/ oil for greasing
- Flour for dusting
Instructions
- In a bowl, add curd, vinegar/ Lemon juice and honey. Mix ittogether and leave it aside for 10minutes for the mixture to curdle. We need a buttermilk type texture from the curd.
- Meanwhile,Pre-Heat your oven at 200 degree celcius. Or if you are baking on gas, thenprepare a pan/ kadhai with salt. Place a baking ring in the middle and closethe lid and pre-heat it for 10 minutes.
- In another bowl, add all purpose flour, salt, dried herbs, bakingpowder, baking soda.
- Nowadd the curd, vinegar and honey mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients. Knead asoft dough.
- Add the oil 5 grams at a time to clean the remaining dough fromthe bowl.
- Rest the dough in a bowl which is lightly greased with oil. Keepit aside for ½ hour.
- On a surface lightly dusted with flour, roll out your pizza dough with a rolling pin.
- Transfer the pizza dough on baking tray greased with butter oroil.
- You can directly bake the pizza, by adding your favouritetoppings.
- Ifyou only want to bake the base, then prick the rolled dough with a fork so thatthe pizza base does not rise too much.
- Bake your no-yeast pizza for 10-12 minutes at 200 degree celciusi in oven and for 10-15 minutes in pan/kadhai.
Notes
- Use the oldest, sour curd to make the dough. The acidity and sourness is what will help instead of the yeast.
- The curd must be minimum a day old.
- Don’t use water to knead the dough. The curd is enough to bind the dough.
- At first, it’ll be a soft dough. But after resting, it will become pliable.
- Store pizza dough in the freezer if not using. But I advise you to make the base, if not the entire pizza with topping.
- Cling wrap the prepared base and store in the fridge.
- Storing pizza dough for long is not advised, because the baking soda, baking powder in the dough gets activated with the vinegar/ lemon juice and the curd. The dough will become stale very soon.
- Don’t use whole wheat flour entirely. You can add it along with all-purpose flour. But the measurement must not go more than 145 grams.
- This pizza with whole wheat flour will taste like a regular chapati.
- This no-yeast pizza dough is softer when baked. However, you can cook it for a longer time to make it crispy.
To conclude
My midnight craving paved the way for me to make a yeast-free pizza dough recipe. It’s super easy to make and you can get a delicious pizza in under an hour! I enjoyed my pizza with my homemade creamy pesto sauce. I added simple boiled chicken with the pesto sauce. I also made another one with my quick homemade tomato sauce and cheese.
I am sure, by now you have already started craving for a pizza. Don’t lie! Be honest with the rumbling noise in your stomach due to hunger. Try out this no-yeast pizza dough and let me know how it goes.
Happy Baking !!