Why Your Pizza Crust Is Too Hard: How To Fix It

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If your pizza crust is coming out too hard then it can be from several common mistakes. Luckily these can be fixed very easily with a little know-how. Nobody likes a pizza that resembles cardboard!

These are some common reasons:

• Baked for too long and dried out
• Not enough water in the dough
• Too much kneading
• Adding Too Much Flour When Kneading
• Using A Rolling Pin Instead Of Stretching

If you need a fool proof dough with detailed step-by-step instructions then check out my pizza dough recipe to give yourself the best start.

If you’re struggling with making your dough or stretching it out, check out my pizza making video course which covers dough and the other ingredients and tools in depth.

Now we have the quick answers, here are some solutions for fixing these problems in a little more detail.

Baked For Too Long And Dried Out

The best pizza crusts are crisp on the exterior but still retain a moist interior. This is what makes it soft and supple, rather than tough and chewy. 

To achieve this you need to keep the crust from drying out. Much like other foods, this can happen if the pizza is cooked for too long. The high heat for excessive times caused the moisture to evaporate.

To solve this you can cook the pizza quicker, in a hotter environment. The obvious one is turning up your oven temperature to the maximum. And make sure it has been preheated fully. This usually takes 45 minutes or so from a cold oven.

The second one which drastically cuts cooking time is using a pizza stone or steel. This surprised me how effective these were when I started using them – pretty much cutting the cooking time in half.

My best tip for making pizza in a home oven is to use a pizza “steel”. It adds intense heat from below for amazing crusts – I have this size steel from Amazon which is lower priced than other brands but works perfectly. Steel conducts heat better than stone, they don’t shatter and are easier to clean.

If it’s out of your price range then the 2nd best option is a pizza stone made from cordierite. To see a round-up of the most important pizza equipment check out my essential pizza equipment list.

Not Enough Water In The Dough

Another cause of tough and dry crust is the water content in the dough, also called hydration. By using less water, then you have more chance of drying out. As mentioned, this is a cause of tough dough and crust. 

It’s an odd thing to think, but wetter dough actually makes the pizza more crisp. It makes more steam which keeps the dough light and allows it to rise quick. It cooks better and makes a crisper crust with larger holes.

When bread is made, artisan bread such as ciabatta and sourdough with their large holey structure are all made with wetter dough as a key step.

So adding a little more water to the dough is good practice. It makes the dough a little harder to work with and shape, but the results are typically better. 

Learning about bakers’ percentages is useful if you haven’t already. This is the idea of ingredient ratios rather than just a recipe. It’s worked out comparable to the flour in the recipe.

So if you have 1000g of flour and use 700m of water (700 ml water equals 700g water) then you are using 70% hydration. Or 500g flour and 350 ml is also 70%. You just need to divide the water by the flour and multiply by 100.

Try a hydration of 65%, which is a good start.  You can then push it up to 70% and see the difference for yourself. See my pizza dough recipe.

Too Much Kneading

Too much kneading makes the dough a bit dense and what you might call a tighter crumb in the bread world.

The kneading builds up gluten which is the stretchy network of strands in the dough. It’s what makes the dough smooth and elastic as many recipes will call. You can certainly feel it as you take a shaggy ball of flour and water into a cohesive mass while you knead.

Kneading organizes the gluten into a more uniform network. It makes the outcome more chewy from all the work that has gone into it.

A bit like a dense loaf of bread compared to a holey-crusted bread – the answer is more kneading equals more density.

Many poor recipes online and in books will have you knead the pizza dough for 10-20 minutes. I did this for a long time thinking it was the way forward. But you don’t need to knead pizza dough for anywhere near that.

Try adding a resting period just after you have mixed all your ingredients. This allows the flour and water to hydrate themselves and start the chemical reaction. Gluten starts forming on its own with no kneading.

Let it rest for 20 minutes and then proceed to knead the dough for 2-3 minutes on the worktop. It will be semi smooth, and not super elastic and springy. But it will make a very delicate crust.

Adding Too Much Flour When Kneading

When you’ve mixed your ingredients and its time to knead, it can be tempting to cover your worktop in mounds of flour to begin. Especially if you have sticky dough that might be prone to getting stuck.

But in this phase, kneading is still incorporating flour into the dough.

This causes the dough to drop in its hydration ratio, and effectively dry out. And dry dough means tougher dough as it doesn’t rise as well.

To help this, use small amounts of flour on the bench. Lightly dust it and move quickly to prevent sticking. Using less flour, but topping it up when you need to, ensures you use a minimal amount of flour.

If it gets sticky then use a dough scraper to bring the dough back together rather than your fingers.

When it comes to the stretching phase then feel free to use as much flour as you need. Here, we aren’t mixing this flour back in, but we are just using it on the surface.

It won’t dry out your dough on the interior, which is the important bit.

Using A Rolling Pin Instead Of Stretching

Using a rolling pin to flatten a pizza base can cause the dough to become more dense. This is because you push all the pockets of gas that are built up when it rises.

These pockets of dough make the dough lighter in texture. By stretching by hand, you preserve this airiness a bit more, and you can be more gentle with the dough when shaping.

Try using your fingers to press down the dough from the center to the crust. Keep the middle slightly thicker as this is where the stretching happens.

Once you’ve got it in a flatter shape, you can pick it up and drape it over your upturned fists. Pull apart and work with gravity to stretch the dough thinner. Move the dough around your hands to keep the base stretching from all angles.

Hold it to the light to see the thinner bits and the bits which need more stretching.

My Recommended Recipe For Tender Pizza

Ingredients (makes 3 medium pizzas)

Bread Flour: 500g – (100%)
Tepid Water: 325ml – (65%)
Instant Yeast: 0.3g – (0.06%)
Salt: 15g – (3%)
Olive Oil: 15g – (3%)

Dissolve salt and yeast in the water, then add the flour and the oil. Mix for 30 seconds, and then leave for 20 minutes for the flour to absorb and rest.

Knead it for 2-3 minutes and let it rise in bulk for 1 hour. Ball 3 dough balls and let them ferment at room temperature for 6-12 hours while airtight. Then stretch by hand, and cook on a preheated pizza steel for 5-7 minutes (until very golden), turning once.

Recommended Equipment

I wrote an article on my recommended tools for making pizza which you can find here. The biggest impact for a more tender crust is probably getting a pizza steel and a digital scale for ingredient accuracy.

Conclusion

You now have my top ways to avoid a tough pizza crust. It all comes from starting with a great dough with the correct proportions.

Then the proper handling and mixing of the dough is important. Keeping it gentle ensures a delicate final outcome. Finally, with the correct cooking temperatures and equipment you are on for a winner.

Give my recipe a go – the dough rises at room temperature with a very small amount of yeast to stop it from rising too much. This allows it to develop flavor and a delicate texture, it’s easy to stretch and rises well in the oven.