Table of Contents
- Pizza crust should be soft or hard?
- What kind of pizza crust do we eat these days?
- Why eating hard pizza crust is unhealthy?
- How to make pizza crust soft?
- How to fix a hard pizza crust?
- Related Questions
- Final Thoughts
Pizza crust should be soft or hard?
What kind of crust should pizza have? This is a question that has been asked for many years, and there are many different opinions on the subject.
Some people believe that the crust should be soft, while others think it should be hard. Which one is better?
The answer is very obvious: pizza crust should be smooth, soft, but not rubbery to hold.
Many factors affect the final result of a pizza.
Let’s have a look at them:
What kind of pizza crust do we eat these days?
Today’s pizza crust is mostly made from cheap ingredients. It contains high amounts of sugar, preservatives that are harmful to the body, bleached wheat flour, and some other cheap material that can be used as an alternative.
The result is what we eat today: a salty and sweet dough that’s full of chemicals and no longer has any nutritional value.
When it comes to texture, pizza crust is dense when we’re kneading it, but it’s very soft, so it should be folded easily.
Why eating hard pizza crust is unhealthy?
Many people can’t eat hard pizza crust due to some medical or oral issues. Some of the examples are below:
1. Kids
Kids under the age of five must never be fed hard pizza crust. The reason is that their teeth aren’t fully developed.
Hard pizza crusts can cause many problems such as cavities and swollen gums.
2. Elderly
Pizza crust should be soft for the elderly, to help them eat it easily and chew it slowly. If they eat a hard crust, it can result in:
- Swollen gums
Hard pizza crust will lead to swollen gums, which causes tooth pain. It can even cause teeth loss or sleep apnea, which is an issue that is better not to have.
So, people with oral problems must avoid eating hard crusts because it will cause additional discomfort and pain when eating pizza.
- Cavities
Hard crusts are dense and it can result in tooth discomfort or cavities. A cavity is a hole in the tooth that can be caused by yeast.
Yeast is a type of fungus that lives on sugars and carbs. It tends to grow more when we eat processed carbohydrates such as hard crusts, which make it easier for the yeast to attack our teeth.
- Broken teeth
Consuming hard pizza crust can cause someone to have cracked or broken teeth.
Especially, people who have braces must be careful when eating hard crust because if they eat it, their brackets will break. Also, people with false teeth shouldn’t consume such food as well unless they don’t want to lose them quickly.
3. Stomach patients
People who have stomach problems should avoid eating hard pizza crust.
Hard crusts are difficult to digest, so gastric juice will not be pumped out properly to break down food. When this happens, the patient may suffer from indigestion, nausea, vomiting, or constipation.
How to make pizza crust soft?
Here are some tips to make a soft and smooth pizza crust:
1. Use yeast and keep it for around 5 minutes
It helps to make the crust soft using yeast baking powder. And, if we knead the dough until it’s smooth and elastic before letting it rest, then we can get a better texture of pizza crust that is also healthy.
2. Don’t do it in a rush
If we want to make soft and good pizza crust, we mustn’t do it in a rush. We should knead the dough with our hands and legs before leaving it for around 30 minutes.
3. Use whole grain flour instead of bleached flour
Using whole grain will help make the better texture of pizza crust as well as its color. Bleached flour is used to make the white-flour crust, which is more brittle and pale than the whole grain one.
4. Add honey to the dough
Adding honey will help make the crust better because it contains natural sugars that can easily activate the yeast. Honey is also rich in nutrients such as calcium, phosphorus, and niacin, which makes it better for our health.
5. Use milk substitutes
Milk is also commonly used during the process of making dough, but we can substitute it by using different types of milk like soy or almond milk that will make pizza crust soft and delicious without too much fat.
6. Add olive oil into the dough
Olive oil has a lot of benefits to the body, such as improving heart health. It makes our pizza crust soft and smooth, so we can easily fold it. And it’s also good for those who have diabetes or other issues related to blood sugar levels.
How to fix a hard pizza crust?
So, you can make pizza dough by following some of the above tips, if you’re not satisfied with your old recipes. You can make the dough softer by using the following methods:
1. Use less yeast
If we use less yeast and then let the dough rest overnight, we can get a better crust by adding more ingredients like egg whites or whey protein.
2. Try a cold rise
We can see a softer crust by making it cold by refrigerating the dough. If we use less yeast and then try this way, we’ll have a better texture that is easy to bend without breaking too quickly.
Also, keep in mind not to leave the dough for more than 24 hours as it may cause harmful bacteria growth.
3. Add humidity to the dough
It’s easy to make pizza crust softer by adding humidity, such as spray bottle water or sponge water. It will help us get a soft and smooth crust easily without any difficulty.
4. Add alcohol into the dough
Adding some alcohol like brandy or cognac can help us reduce gluten formation and make the dough softer to bend. It can also prevent the crust from becoming too tough when we use cold rise.
Related Questions
Will alcohol ruin my pizza dough?
Adding alcohol will not ruin the dough, but it’s better to use less quantity of it. If we add too much, especially during the cold rise process, then we will get a less elastic and soft dough that is easily breaking when we try to bend it.
Also, if we bake our pizza crust with too much alcohol for a few minutes, it will evaporate along with the alcohol smell. So, our crust won’t be fragrant anymore and it’s better to brush some olive oil on it to make it aromatic again.
Which oil/fat is better for pizza dough?
The most common types of oil or fat used for pizza dough are olive and vegetable oils. But they’re not the only ones; we can also use lard, coconut oil, etc.
Vegetable oil has a higher smoke point that allows it to be heated more than animal fats like lard and butter that can burn easily at high temperatures. So, it’s recommended to use vegetable oil for making pizza dough.
Which ingredient makes pizza dough soft?
Milk, olive oil, and honey are the three most common ingredients that make pizza crust soft. They’re easy to find and also don’t cost too much money.
People across the world use different types of flour such as yeast water or baking powder for making their dough. But there is no one better than these three ingredients because they contain natural sugars that can easily activate the yeast. Milk is also rich in calcium, phosphorus, and niacin while olive oil has a lot of benefits to our health such as improving heart health and making pizza crust soft and smooth.
Why do some people like hard pizza crust?
There are many reasons why some people prefer hard pizza crust. For example, a baked thin and crispy dough is lighter than a thick one so it’s easier to digest. It can also stay fresh longer as there is more room for the air in the middle of the crust.
Final Thoughts
In summary, pizza crust should be soft or hard according to our personal taste, but we need to make it as soft as possible. If we like a thick and tough crust, then we should use only whole wheat flour for making pizza dough or avoid adding any other ingredient except yeast.
Happy Baking!
