Why We Turned Our Most Popular Recipe Into a Product

The Baking Steel Dough Pack did not start in a lab or a boardroom. It started on a Friday morning during Covid, in our test kitchen on South Main Street, with me and Chef Craig balling up 125 dough balls by hand.

Here is the whole story.

When Covid Shut Us Down, I Turned to Dough

Before the pandemic, a big part of what we did was teach. Live pizza classes, people in the same room, hands in the flour. Covid ended that overnight. No classes, no gatherings, no way to be with our community the way we always had been.

So I asked myself a simple question: everyone is stuck at home anyway, so why not help them make legendary pizza in their own kitchens? I did not want to disappear from the community. And dough turned out to be the perfect way to stay in it.

The Friday Dough Drops

It became a weekly ritual. Every Wednesday I would make the dough and bulk ferment it at room temperature for 24 hours. Then it went into the fridge for another day. Friday morning, Chef Craig and I would ball it all up by hand, 125 dough balls, lightly oiled, packed into deli containers. We sold them in four packs for twenty dollars.

We timed the ferment on purpose. A 48-hour ferment meant the dough was ready to go for Friday night pizza. But by Saturday it hit that 72-hour sweet spot, prime time, the deep and complex flavor that only long fermentation gives you.

People would drive to the test kitchen on South Main Street and pick up. 125 was our max, every week, and every single week we sold out.

The Sunday Text

The best part was the people. Mostly regulars, a few new faces every week. I got to talk to almost everyone who came through. That connection was the whole point.

And then there was the Sunday text. If we happened to have a little dough left over, word got around. I would get a message: "Hey, you got any doughs left?" I felt like a drug dealer, except the product was pizza dough. That is when it really hit me. People were not just buying a recipe. They wanted the dough.

People Did Not Want the Recipe. They Wanted the Dough.

I have given away the 72-hour pizza dough recipe for free for over a decade. It is our most popular piece of content, period. Anyone can make it.

But the Friday drops taught me something the recipe never did. A lot of people do not want to source the right flour, dial in a scale, and manage a three-day ferment from scratch. They want the good dough, the ritual of making pizza with their family, and the shortcut past the guesswork. Selling out 125 packs a week, and fielding those Sunday texts, told me this had to become a real product.

A Year to Get It Right

Wanting to make it and actually making it were two different things. It took over a year to turn a fresh dough I make by hand into a shelf-stable mix that comes out identical every time.

I was not going to ship something that was not right. We spent that year finding the right co-packer, dialing in the recipe for a dry mix format, and testing until a bag made in a facility tasted exactly like the dough Craig and I balled up on Friday mornings. Same organic flour. Same ratios. Same 72-hour magic. It had to be right, or it was not worth doing.

The Bag Is the Recipe

That is what the 72-Hour Dough Mix is. Everything pre-measured and pre-portioned, so you pour it in a bowl, add water, and let time do the rest. No scale, no sourcing, no recipe to follow. The bag is the recipe.

And the best part carried over. Mixing the dough, watching it rise over three days, stretching it out, building your own pizza with your family, that is all still there. We just took out the hard part so more people could get to the good part.

The Friday dough drops are how this started. The pack is how I get to do it for a whole lot more kitchens than 125 a week. Same dough. Same idea. Help people make legendary pizza at home.

Everyone Has to Try This Dough at Least Once

Here is what I tell everyone. The recipe is amazing on its own, but the flour is what makes it legendary. That organic flour, given three days to ferment, is a completely different animal. We spent years finding the right flour before we ever thought about making a product. Here is what we learned.

So make the dough. Then two or three days later, fire up your oven with a Baking Steel inside, screaming hot. What comes out will not just be the best pizza you have ever made at home. It will be one of the best pizzas you have ever eaten, period.

And here is what happens next. You are going to want to invite friends over and play restaurant, just like I still do today. Because that is what this is all about. Making pizza and sharing it with the people you love. That was the whole point of those Friday drops, and it is the whole point of the pack. The dough is just how you get there.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Baking Steel Dough Pack?

It is our 72-Hour Dough Mix, a shelf-stable bag that contains our most popular pizza dough recipe pre-measured and pre-portioned. You add water, ferment, and make pizza. It is the same recipe we sold by hand during Covid, now available to ship anywhere.

Why did Baking Steel start selling dough?

During Covid, live pizza classes stopped, so we started making fresh dough for our community every Friday. We sold out 125 packs a week, and it became clear people wanted the dough itself, not just the recipe. That led us to develop the shelf-stable dough pack.

Is the dough pack the same as the free 72-hour recipe?

Yes. It is the exact same recipe we have shared for free for over a decade, just pre-measured into a bag so you do not need a scale or to source ingredients. Same organic flour, same ratios, same long ferment.

How long did it take to develop the dough pack?

Over a year. We spent that time finding the right co-packer and dialing in the dry mix format so that every bag comes out identical to the fresh dough we made by hand.

About the Author

Andris Lagsdin invented the Baking Steel in 2012 using steel from his family's Stoughton Steel Company in Hanover, MA. a shop his family has run since the 1970s. What started as a Kickstarter project (backed after an endorsement from Kenji López-Alt on Serious Eats) has grown into the go-to tool for hundreds of thousands of home pizza makers. Every Baking Steel is still made at the family shop.

Before launching Baking Steel, Andris trained under renowned chef Todd English and spent 15 years in the family steel business. He's the co-author of Baking with Steel with Jesse Olson Moore.

Today he teaches thousands of students how to make pizzeria-quality pizza at home through his free online classes and recipes.

In 2026, Andris launched the 72-Hour Pizza Dough Mix the same recipe he's been teaching for over a decade, now in a bag. Just add water.