My version of Frozen Pizza Dough

The Pragmatic Chef™'s Frozen PIzza Dough

This will make 6 thin 14" pies, or medium thickness 12" pizzas:

1 quart water- warmish, but not hot
2 packages dry yeast
11 C bread flour, preferably unbleached. You can use AP if you're using a mixer, or looking for a real workout
2T kosher salt
A little Olive or canola oil to coat the bowl before you let it raise

This is a little unwieldy to mix all at once in most home mixers, but you can do it if you keep a silicone spatula handy to herd the dough back into the mixer when it rides up, but be careful that you don't get it caught! Best to divide it in half, mix and let it raise in two bowls instead of one. This will make it easier to portion, anyway.

If you're kneading it by hand, you really want to stretch it out to its full length, as opposed to just punching the crap out of it on your work table. This will get those little gluten chains going a lot more quickly. Pick it up, and use it like one of those long springy exercise things with the handles, alternating it with stretching it out on the table.

Ultimately, you want to be able to pick up a golf ball sized piece of dough and stretch it out to around 9-10" long. This will let you know you're done. Use common sense- you might have to add more water on a given day. More water will make the gluten develop more quickly, but will make it stickier.

Put a little oil in a bowl (or two) and roll it around a bit. Dump your dough in there, flipping it over so it's covered top and bottom, cover with plastic, then let it raise in a warm place.

How long? Depends on how much time you're going to have the day you make pizza. You'll have better results if you opt for more time on bake day, as opposed to now. I like to let it not quite double in size. This lets me cram 5 dough balls in a one gallon freezer bag, keeping one for baking right away. If you think you'll have less time later, let it double and bag accordingly.

Generally you'll be portioning these into around 14 or 15 oz. portions. If you have a scale great, otherwise eyeball it as best you can. If you don't have a scale, this makes the case for mixing it in two batches initially, it's a lot easier to divide something in thirds than sixths. Roll them into smoothish portions then oil them very lightly, which will keep them from drying out in the freezer, to a certain extent.

From here, lots of options, and my technique is still evolving. To minimize freezer burn, you can wrap them individually in plastic wrap then put them in 1Q freezer bags, or into one larger size, if they fit. You could also put them into individual cheapy leftover containers, which would stack better. (Update: for my latest batch, I've flattened them into disks, figuring they'll take up less room than balls, and they'll thaw more quickly.)

In a perfect world, the day before you're going to bake you'll take as many as you need out of the freezer and let them thaw in the fridge. If you see any freezer burn or ice on them at all, rinse them with cold water before you start the thawing process. This brings them back very nicely. I've had okay success with just speed thawing on the counter for two or three hours, but the dough is going to fight you a lot more as you pan it out.

In my mind, ahem, there are two schools of thought from here. Oil the pan, or not. To this point, the oil we've used is just to protect the dough throughout the process. I get a much crispier crust from not oiling my pan, opting for a little flour instead, but it's up to you. I don't have any problem with sticking generally, which sounds counter-intuitive, when I don't oil, and more issues when I do.

I put a minimum amount of flour on a work table, then pan out the dough. How? Up to you- with your hands, a rolling pin with a bit of flour, throw it up in the air like the groovy guys do. It all works, just get it into a circle somehow. If it fights you, cover it with plastic wrap for 10 minutes and walk away. You're not going to win. Neutral corners, then come back fighting. When you're done, you can fold it in half carefully, to make it easy to transport.

Put a little flour, and I mean a little flour on your pan, and flop it on there. If it's not perfect, don't sweat it, I have a little trick to help you that comes later. Get it roughly in position, then 'dock' a bunch of holes in it with a fork. To add some flavor, now you can put some olive oil on top, along with a little more salt and some dry herbs, if you like that kind of thing, to give your dough some extra flavor. A tiny bit of dry rosemary, thyme and basil works really well, try it.

Cover it loosely with plastic, and here's a trick. If your panning technique isn't the best, or the dough wasn't relaxed enough before you started, you now have an opportunity to right your previous wrongs. With the plastic on, and the right amount of oil, you can now use your hand to work the dough to the edges, and smooth out any bumps. The plastic wrap will help hold the dough in position. If you've done major surgery, make a mental note to dock the dough again before you top it, so that you don't get major air bubbles as it bakes. Let it raise an hour or two, then put it in the fridge if it will be a while before you're cooking it.

Toppings? I'll leave that to you, but crank your oven up to 500º, and get a rack as close to the bottom as you can. If you have a stone or other fancy stuff, good for you, but it's not necessary, really.

Pop your pie in there, and enjoy the show. Take a peek at the bottom a few minutes before it's done to make sure that it's brown, and to make sure your pizza is going to release from the pan. If it's not quite crispy brown, and you're feeling gutsy, use your spatula to carefully slide the pie directly onto the rack, but only for a minute, it'll burn quickly.

Back onto the pan, slice and serve. Glorious.