I've been making pizza dough from scratch every week since I launched the Baking Steel in 2012.
That's not an exaggeration. For a couple of years, I was probably making more pizzas at home than almost anyone on earth. It was my job, learn everything, test everything, teach our customers. I kneaded dough by hand for the first five to seven years. All of it. As the batches grew, I'd be working through 3,000 gram batches by hand, six times our home recipe, before I finally bought a commercial spiral mixer.
So when I tell you I know how to make dough from scratch, I mean it.
How It Started, Jim Lahey and the No-Knead Method
Early on I made a trip to New York City to meet Jim Lahey at Sullivan Street Bakery. I loved his no-knead recipe and wanted his blessing to share it with every Baking Steel customer. He agreed. For years, Jim's recipe went into every Baking Steel box.
His baker's percentages became our foundation. Simple, elegant, and outstanding on the steel.
But as we kept making pizzas, week after week, year after year, our recipe evolved. We learned that bread flour holds fermentation longer than all-purpose. We learned that the "no-knead" dough actually benefits from a little kneading. And we learned that fermentation is everything. A 72-hour cold ferment produces layers of flavor and texture you simply cannot get from a 12-hour dough.
The Case for From Scratch
Making dough from scratch is deeply satisfying. You control every variable, flour, hydration, salt percentage, yeast quantity, fermentation time. When it works, it really works.
But here's the thing nobody talks about: it requires a scale. Full stop. Dough is science. You cannot eyeball a hydration ratio and hope. Water content is everything, too much and your dough won't hold shape, too little and it won't stretch. Every serious recipe is written in grams for a reason.
That means before you make a single pizza, you need a scale, you need to source quality bread flour, you need to measure everything precisely, and you need to start three days ahead. That's a commitment. And if you procrastinate on making dough, if you skip Tuesday because it felt like too much, you're not having pizza on Friday.
I've watched that happen to home bakers for 13 years.
Why We Built the Dough Pack
The friction was always the measuring.
Not the fermentation, people love that part once they experience it. Not the stretching, that becomes meditative. The friction was standing at the counter with a scale, weighing flour, water, salt, yeast, hoping the ratios were right.
So we asked: what if we could eliminate that entirely?
The Baking Steel 72-Hour Dough Pack is organic unbleached flour, sea salt, and dry yeast, pre-measured, pre-proportioned, ready to go. The only thing you measure is 1¾ cups of room temperature water. Pour the mix into a bowl. Add the water. Mix it up.
That's it.
No scale. No sourcing flour. No math. Twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two hours later ,you have world-class fermented pizza dough ready to stretch and bake on the steel.
I've made dough thousands of times. Using the dough pack still puts a smile on my face every single time. Not because it's easier than scratch, though it is, but because it removes every reason not to make pizza this week.
So Which Is Better?
If you love the process, have a scale, and want complete control, make it from scratch. Jim Lahey's method is still in our DNA and it's still outstanding.
If you want world-class fermented dough without the friction, grab the dough pack. Same 72-hour cold ferment. Same flavor depth. No scale required.
Either way, use the Baking Steel. That part isn't optional.
About the Author
Andris Lagsdin is the inventor of the Baking Steel and founder of Baking Steel Inc. He's been making pizza dough from scratch weekly since 2012 and has tested more home oven pizza combinations than he can count. Everything on this site he's made in his own kitchen first.
