Dough – Using sugar when making pizza dough

I am an Indian and we make dough for everyday bread at home. It's easy to knead dough; you just have to take care while adding water. Do not add all the water you have, and add water slowly and steadily. For pizza dough I follow these steps:

• Mix yeast in warm water, add sugar to this water. Observe this mixture - as soon as you see bubbles, it is ready to be used for kneading dough.
• Add oil and salt to flour along with the yeast you have prepared.
• I use a spoon to keep mixing the flour and add spoonfuls of water, I keep some flour handy in case I have accidentally added too much water.

I keep kneading the dough gently and add water or flour as needed. This does require some practice.

You probably didn't knead the dough for long enough, so the gluten in the dough wasn't fully developed. There are two useful tests to determine if your dough has been kneaded properly.

1.The Poke Test

Form the dough into a ball and, using a floured finger, give it a poke. If the indentation springs back, your dough is nearly ready - knead more lightly until you try test 2. If the indentation remains, keep kneading.

2.The Windowpane Test

If your dough passes the Poke Test, knead it a little more, then pull off a chunk of dough and stretch it with your hands. If the gluten is sufficiently developed, the dough will stretch thin enough to see light through, without breaking. If the dough breaks, knead it some more.

When shaping, even properly developed dough can spring back after shaping if you've just removed it from the bowl. Let the dough relax for a few minutes before trying to shape it again.

Try and avoid adding more flour if you can - wet dough is good dough. Semolina flour is a good alternative to prevent sticking.