This calzone pizza dough comes together quickly, and my kids adore it. This recipe was given to me by my close friend and chef Darrin Gleason more than ten years ago, while we were both still in college. For all these years, my family has relied on this recipe, so I thought I’d share it with the rest of my cooking community.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 20 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 medium calzones |
Ingredients
- ½ cup lukewarm water
- 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
- ½ cup water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Instructions
- Mix together 1/2 cup lukewarm water and yeast in a small bowl. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.
- Combine 1/2 cup water, olive oil, honey, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add 1 cup flour and mix well. Mix yeast mixture into flour mixture. Add remaining flour, 1 cup at a time, until dough is well combined.
- Knead dough on a floured work surface until dough is soft, smooth, and elastic, about 8 minutes. Roll dough into 4 calzone shapes or 1 large pizza.
- The dough should be as “soft as a horse’s nose” after kneading.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Fill the dough with your favorite ingredients, or if used as a pizza crust, top with your favorite toppings. Bake in the preheated oven until crust is lightly browned, 15 to 20 minutes.
Reviews
A nice tender soft crust perfect for pizza too
It need 1 teaspoon ground Italian seasoning mixed in. Crust about about 1/4 inch baste with butter towards the end and then put oven on broil for about five min
I made this does several times, and it is great
Works out great if you tweak values and let it rise.
Used milk instead of water. Delicious soft dough. Played with fillings… Made baked eggplant with Bulgarian cheese. Sweet potato ( prebaked sliced) with kashkaval cheese. Pizza sauce with mushrooms…
Made 4 calzones. Made as per recipe. Nice and quick, everyone enjoyed them! Is this like calzones in Italian restaurant? No, but my boys enjoyed them more. This dough they liked better Making them for the 2nd time tonight.
Used the dough hook with the kitchenaid mixer and it was so easy! No need to let it rise, it’s good to go straight out of the bowl! Quick and EASY! I wasn’t sure if “soft like a horse’s nose” described texture or consistency so I probably added too much flour and it still turned out great! You can’t get it wrong it’s so simple!
I’ve made this dough so many times and people say thar it’s so good and airy.
This recipe is all sorts of wrong and lacking detail. The texture is NOT that of a true calzone or pizza. Recipe does not even mention to let dough rise. Needs more water and less kneading. There are better & authentic, tried, tested, and true recipes online. Save yourself the time and effort and don’t use this.
Very good
I thought this recipe was perfect, I made chicken calzones and they were perfect! sorry no photo I will add one next time
It was nice soft dough. Worked out perfectly!
Love it. We are retirees so can only make smaller sizes. We made it into 6 and they were still to hig
Super easy to make and the family loved it. We had calzones for lunch and dinner.
Added an extra teaspoon of honey. Made it almost like sweet Italian roll.
Fun to make and great for calzones!
Wasn’t very good. Texture was okay, but flavor was bland. My usual dough recipe uses brown sugar, but I thought I would try something different. I will never use this one again. Not sure why it doesn’t call for rising after the initial mixing, but maybe that would help (couldn’t hurt). I do not recommend.
Excellent calzone dough. I gave it an egg wash and sprinkled some grated parmesan on top before baking. Will definitely make again.
Made this twice now and it is my go to forever. Both times it turned out perfect.
Great pizza dough. Makes two 18” thin crust pizzas. Easy to roll out. About a quarter cup of extra flour will be needed for hands, roller and table used to roll dough.
Soft as a horses nose makes ZERO sense…… UNTIL!!!! you try this dough. Then it makes perfect sense. It’s sweet and soft. Perfect for our calzones.