This is the dough for when you haven’t made the overnight doughs and you just feel like pizza now. It takes about 10 minutes to make, 10 minutes to rest, and uses ingredients that are always in the house. No yeast, no fermenting, no planning — the baking powder and yoghurt (or kefir) do the lifting. Not as complex in flavour as the slow rise wood fired pizza dough, but genuinely good, and a complete game changer for spur-of-the-moment pizza nights.

QUICK AND EASY PIZZA DOUGH

Ingredients

  • 600g plain flour
  • 30g baking powder
  • 20g fine salt
  • 500g Greek yoghurt or kefir

Method

  1. Put the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixer bowl. Whisk together with a Danish dough whisk to combine evenly.
  2. Add the yoghurt or kefir. Use the Danish dough whisk to bring everything together into a rough shaggy dough — about 30 seconds.
  3. Fit the dough hook and knead on slow speed for 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and come away from the sides of the bowl. Add a spoonful of extra flour if it looks too wet.
  4. Tip onto a lightly floured bench. Shape into a log and divide into 6 pieces of about 190g. Roll each into a tight ball, tucking the edges under.
  5. Cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap and rest 10 minutes while the pizza oven heats up.
  6. Stretch each ball on a floured surface using the side of your hand, rotating as you go. Once it starts to spread, lift and gently stretch by holding the outer edges and letting gravity do the work. Brush with olive oil before adding passata and toppings.

Notes

Yoghurt or kefir: Both work. Greek yoghurt gives a slightly tighter, denser base. Kefir gives a looser, tangier dough with a bit more stretch. If you’re using kefir straight from the jar and it’s on the thinner side, hold back 50g and add only if the dough seems dry.

Best used fresh: Unlike the yeast doughs, this one doesn’t freeze well and doesn’t improve with resting. Make it, rest it briefly, cook it. Leftover cooked pizza reheats fine though — a few minutes in the pizza oven or air fryer brings it back.

Short rest is intentional: Baking powder starts reacting as soon as it hits moisture. The 10 minute rest relaxes the dough for stretching without losing the lift.

For the slow rise yeast version, see our Wood Fired Pizza Dough.