When making pizza, it is vital to consider a variety of factors. One of these factors is the size of your pizza dough balls and how much dough you should use per pizza?
For instance, the amount of dough to use while making different sizes has always been something of a mystery. As such, the weight of the dough depends on the size one wishes to make.
You can use a dough calculator that is available online. This will help you find the right dough ball size for your recipe. In this article, you will understand the amount of dough per pizza.
Sounds interesting? Read on to discover more.
What is Baker’s Math?
The baker’s math, also known as baker’s percentage, is a way of stating a pizza dough recipe as the weight of every ingredient relative to the weight of the flour.
It is a standard used in commercial pizza bakeries to ensure consistency. It is also helpful when scaling up or down a dough recipe to make different dough balls.
Baker’s math has many advantages when it comes time to adapt a pizza dough recipe to make a specific amount of dough. For instance, it enables one to precisely calculate the number of grams for each ingredient that you need without potentially missing the mark or guessing.
How to Convert a Recipe to Baker’s Math
To do this, you will be required to convert your standard pizza dough recipe into baker’s math.
To show you how this is done, we will use the following dough ingredients;
- 500 grams high protein flour
- 325 grams water
- 25 grams olive oil
- 20 grams sugar
- 10 grams salt
- 5 grams active yeast
Now, for you to convert this recipe into baker’s math, the weight of each ingredient is calculated as a percentage of the dough flour’s weight.
For instance, you need to divide the weight of each ingredient by the weight of flour. You can then multiply it by 100 to get the baker’s math. In the case above, the flour’s weight is 500 grams.
- 500 grams Flour = 500 grams/500 grams x 100% = 100%
- 325 grams water = 325/500 x 100% = 65%
- 25 grams olive oil: 25/500 x 100% = 5 %
- 20 grams sugar: 20/500 x 100% = 4%
- 10 grams salt: 10/500 x 100% = 2%
- 5 grams active yeast: 5/500 x 100 = 1%
You need to note that the total can not be 100% in baker’s math. The dough flour alone is 100%. For instance, the total baker’s percentage is 177% in our case above.
With this baker’s math formula in hand, you can easily adjust your recipe for a pizza part with any number of people.
After understanding the baker’s math, knowing how much pizza you need to make for your pizza night party is vital. This calls for knowing how much dough you need per pizza and, thus, the dough ball weight. However, the weight of your dough balls depends on the pizza style that you want to make.
Why do we use grams as a measure of pizza dough weight?
The main reason we use grams to measure the weight of dough is that we handle a tiny amount of ingredients. For instance, it is easier to scale smaller amounts in grams than in any other unit of measurement. This is because they do not have fractions; they are all-around numbers. You will not be required to round up or down.
Take, for example, the weight of the yeast. Would it not be easier to read 10 grams of yeast on a scale than 0.352 ounces?
Also, most home baking scales can not register fractions or decimals. Besides, ounces and pounds are majorly used in the United States. The other parts of the world use a metric system of measurement.
How Many Grams Is A Pizza Dough Ball?
Before you begin to make your favorite pizza, you will be required to follow a pizza dough recipe. This calls for separating the dough into balls while letting it rise before baking.
For instance, if you want to make a batch of dough, you will be required to split it into portions that weigh 200 grams and 400 grams.
The weight of each dough ball will largely depend on the pizza size that you wish to make.
After splitting the pizza dough into portions, you need to allow it to rise in a bowl that has been lined with oil before you put it in the oven.
How much dough do for a 12-inch pizza?
One of the most common pizzas is the 12-inch pizza.
Although it might be hard for many individuals to calculate the weight of the dough, you can use pi (3.14) to get the surface area.
For instance, for a 12-inch pizza, you take Pi x R x R, which will be 3.14 x 6 x 6, which will give you 113.04.
Therefore 113.04 is the total surface area. However, this does not tell the amount or weight of dough that we will need to make our pizza.
Many pizza dough experts will argue that you need to experiment to get the ultimate weight of the dough. Others say that you can use one ounce per square inch.
However, you can turn back to the calculator. For instance, you will be required to work out the surface area of the pizza pan and the dough weight to know the dough loading. This is how much dough is needed for every square inch of the pan.
This can be done by getting the dough weight and dividing it by the pizza pan surface area. For instance, suppose you are 10 ounces of dough; it will be 10 divided by 113.04 = 0.0884642.
Therefore, this tells you that for a 12-inch pizza recipe, you need to use 0.0884642 ounces for every square.
How much dough for a 14-inch pizza?
By employing a similar process to a smaller pizza, you can work out the ounce of dough you need to make a larger or bigger pizza.
For a 14-inch pizza, the pan size is 153 square inches. If you multiply this by 0.0884642, you will get 13.4 ounces. This is the dough weight you will require to make a 14-inch pizza.
Depending on how many square inches your pizza pan is, you can use the above method and calculator to work out any pizza size, whether it is 8-inch, 16-inch or any other pizza size that you would want to make.
It is vital to note that the baking duration will vary for different dough types and according to the pizza size that you wish to make.
Conclusion
When making pizza, you must consider the size of your balls and the amount of dough per pizza. Generally. the size of the pizza will determine the amount of dough you will have to use. You can use an online dough calculator.
