Hi, and thank you for stopping by to read this very informative post.
In my live streams talking about pizza dough and making pizza I mention that you should use 00 flour and avoid using self-rising flour? So, why do I say this?
It is easy to assume that all flours are created equally and can be easily interchanged. Unfortunately this is not the case with pizza dough. In this detailed article I will explore the four basic types of flour: 00, all purpose, self rising, and strong flour.
Self-rising
Just like the name indicates, self-rising flour contains ingredients that help the flour to rise like baking powder. Baking powder is typically made up of baking soda ( a base – pH > 7) and two acids (pH < 7) cream of tartar and sodium aluminium sulphate.
Furthermore, self rising flour varies by location in regards to salt. In some countries like the US, self rising flour includes salt and in some countries like the UK, salt is not included. Salt is very important when you are cooking with yeast since salt controls fermentation thereby providing a better overall structure to your yeast bread. Too much salt, your bread does not rise and too little, it rises too fast with a very poor structure. So, when making breads, it is important to get your salt measurement correct.
This means, using self-rising flour for pizza dough is probably not a good idea due to pH and self-rising flour already having levelling agents that cause the dough to rise. Typically, if you use self-rising flour for yeast breads, like pizza crust and loafs of bread, you will find that the bread is very soft with a poo fie like texture, which is not what you want. Finally, due to the specific use for self-rising flour it should not be substituted for general all purpose flour when making yeast breads.
00 Flour
To make the best pizza crust requires using a very specialised type of flour 00. 00 is a finely milled flour that is high in protein and low in gluten. This means when you make your pizza dough it will readily absorb the water, if your dough is prepared correctly it will take form quicker and hold its shape. 00 flour is the ideal flour when making homemade pizza dough.
The downside to 00 flour, because of its low gluten level it does not brown as much meaning your pizza crust will be more tan. As you can see in the taco pizza photo, the crust is not a deep rich brown but a lighter tan.
However, the benefits of 00 definitely outweigh one minor drawback.
As for cost, 00 is more expensive. I can buy 5 kg of 00 on Amazon UK for around £10. Whereas, I can buy a store brand 5 kg general purpose flour for somewhere between £4 and £7.50.
My challenge to you, if you have not tried 00 with your pizza dough recipe then I suggest you try it because you will never go back. If you have tried 00 flour for pizza dough then I would love to hear your experience.
All Purpose Flour
All purpose, sometimes called general purpose flour or white flour is like the name says, it is meant for most baking situations. Unlike self-rising all purpose flour does not contain levelling agents and unlike 00 flour, all purpose is a medium mill versus being finely milled. This means you can use all purpose flour for most baking situations but where a more finer milled flour is required, you may need to sift it.
Strong Flour
Strong flour is sometimes called bread flour and it is a good overall flour for yeast breads. Some of you are thinking strong flour and 00 flour are the same. You are almost right since they are both well suited for bread making like pizza dough and will give you very good results. However, where they differ is 00 is more finely milled and 00 is lower in gluten content.