Author Notes: One of my favorite pizza-dough recipes is Jim Lahey’s no-knead dough, on which this recipe is based. It’s simple, doesn’t require any equipment, and doesn’t make a big mess. (My wife disagrees about the mess; I have a talent for covering the kitchen in flour.) I make this dough at least once a week, sometimes quintupling the recipe and saving the extra balls of dough to use later or for the pizza classes I teach.

This dough is simple and foolproof, but you do need time. Not hands-on or working time, but twenty-four hours for rising and then forty-eight hours for the cold ferment. That’s seventy-two hours total, in case you don’t have a calculator.

The first twenty-four hours allows the dough to bulk ferment (or rise as one unit before being divided into individual dough portions) at room temperature; just park the dough someplace where it won’t be disturbed. The dough will release a pleasant aroma that will make your kitchen smell like a bakery.