Pizza dough does not stretch - what to do?

Making your own homemade pizza dough can be a lot of fun and give you a lot of control over ingredients and toppings, but when pizza dough doesn’t stretch it can go from fun to frustrating.

What should you do if the pizza dough does not stretch? There are four reasons why pizza dough may not be elastic enough: the wrong flour, poor gluten development, and the dough being too dry or too cold. You can fix this by letting the dough rest or warm up, or by using olive oil instead of flour when you roll it out. 

There’s nothing more frustrating than going to roll out your homemade pizza dough and finding out that it’s too dry, hard, or impossible to stretch.

Don’t worry, there are a few ways to fix it. Read on to find out what may have gone wrong and what you can do to fix it.

What makes pizza dough stretch?

The main factor that causes pizza dough to stretch is gluten. Gluten is a wheat protein that serves as a binding agent for dough, holding all the ingredients together.

Too little gluten means your dough could fall apart, while too much gluten means your dough will be too tight.

Gluten, which is found naturally in wheat flour, develops when it is hydrated with water and kneaded.

Kneading the dough causes the gluten to develop into gluten strands, which are responsible for holding the dough together. This is called gluten development.

The more you knead the dough, the stronger these gluten strands become, which means you continue to develop the gluten.

To get your pizza dough to have the ideal elasticity, you have to control the level of gluten development. You can underdevelop or overdevelop your gluten strands.

Underdeveloped gluten strands can cause your dough to have trouble holding together. Your dough may tear or tear when you try to shape the pizza.

Underdevelopment can also lead to problems during the fermentation phase. To fix it, you just have to knead the dough more.

An overdeveloped dough will lead to other problems, such as a strong, difficult to stretch and non-elastic dough.

In this situation, the gluten strands have become too tight and are preventing the dough from becoming elastic. The best way to fix it is to let the dough relax.

Why isn’t my pizza dough stretching?

There are four reasons why your dough may not be elastic enough.

The most common problem is usually related to the development of gluten, but the type of flour, the hydration and the temperature of the dough can also influence the elasticity of the dough.

1. Overdeveloped Gluten Strands

As we’ve mentioned before, if your dough isn’t elastic enough, it’s most likely due to the elasticity of your gluten strands.

A tight, firm dough means your gluten strands have overdeveloped. Once gluten has developed, it needs time to rest. This rest period allows the strands to become soft and elastic.

A short rest period is usually the most common reason why your pizza dough won’t be elastic enough to shape into a pizza. Pizza dough should rest for at least 30 minutes after kneading.

It is important to note that it can be difficult to over-develop the dough when kneading by hand, but over-development can easily occur when using a mixer. You can use your hands or a Danish dough whisk instead.

If your dough is too tight and you knead by hand, the problem is probably something else.

If you use a mixer to knead the dough, we recommend that you only run it for 5-10 minute increments, letting the dough rest for about 10 minutes between each pass.

A great way to determine if your dough has the ideal level of gluten development is the so-called prick test. It is enough to prick the ball of dough with your index finger. Your dough should immediately return to its original shape.

If the pizza dough returns to its normal shape, you are ready to form the pizza dough. If an imprint remains in the dough, or you can’t push the dough, then your gluten strands don’t have the ideal elasticity.

While over-development is often the result of over-kneading, there are other factors that can cause the gluten strands in your dough to be too tight.

These other reasons may be related to the type of flour you use, the hydration level of your dough, or its temperature.

2. Type of flour

The first factor that can cause excessive development of gluten strands is the flour you use. Different types of flour have different amounts of gluten.

There’s a specific flour for pizza that just so happens to be called pizza flour. It has the ideal percentage of gluten, which is 10-12%.

There are many different types of pizza flour, so you shouldn’t have a problem finding it.

Some of the best types of pizza flour to look for are 00 pizza flours. The number refers to the size of the grains. The more zeros, the finer the texture of the flour.

If you have trouble finding it, and you don’t have time to order it online, you can use bread flour. Bread flour has more gluten than pizza flour.

It’s also common to use all-purpose flour, which also has a high amount of gluten, but often less than bread flour.

3. Moisture content

Another possible reason why your pizza dough is not stretching is that the hydration level is too low. The hydration level of your pizza dough simply refers to the amount of moisture in the dough and is determined by the ratio of flour to water.

The more water your dough has, the more hydrated it will be. Greater hydration leads to a softer and more elastic dough.

Poorly hydrated pizza dough will be dry and break easily. It will also break and crack when you try to stretch it.

There is an ideal balance with hydration, as with the development of gluten, which can be excessive or insufficient.

Your dough may be over or under hydrated. Both things will cause different problems.

You will notice that the dough starts to stick to your hands and work surface when the hydration is too high. To fix the sticky dough, we have another article waiting for you.

In the next section we will give you a solution for dehydrated dough. Adding water to the dough so late in the process is not advised. A little more flour can be incorporated, but the water cannot be incorporated as easily into the dough.

4. Temperature of the dough

The last variable that could be ruining the elasticity of your dough is temperature.

Although storing dough in the fridge is always a good idea, it will always be difficult to work with when cold. This problem can easily be solved by leaving the dough out for 2-3 hours, allowing it to come to room temperature.

When the gluten strands are cold, they tend to be tighter and firmer. Something like the functioning of our muscles. If you go for a run with cold, tense muscles, you could tear a muscle.

If you try to stretch cold, taut pizza dough, it might tear as well. The hot gluten strand will be loose and elastic.

How to make pizza dough stretch

There are a few ways to save pizza dough if you find that it is too dry or not elastic enough.

The first solution, and the easiest, is to let the pizza dough rest. This can take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, depending on how cold the dough is and the ambient temperature in the room.

We recommend that you place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover it with a towel or a piece of plastic.

If you leave it uncovered, some moisture could escape and allow bacteria to enter, causing new problems. Solving the hydration problem requires a different arrangement, so be careful.

After letting your dough come to room temperature, if you notice that it’s still a bit dry, then you’ll want to add some hydration to your dough.

As we have said, you should not add more water at this point, but you can use fat. The best fat you can use is olive oil.

The way to do this is to drizzle a little olive oil on your board or work surface (instead of flour). We also recommend that you put a little olive oil on your hands.

The added fat will help increase hydration and also prevent the dough from sticking.

Adding more flour at this point will make the problem worse, while the fat from the olive oil will help rehydrate the dough. The oil will also help give your pizza a nice golden color after baking.