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I'm planning to make a simple pizza using the two ingredient pizza dough method. I've been doing some reading on it and I see two variants of this:

(1) from Kinda Healthy Recipes which uses all purpose flour, salt, and Greek Yogurt; and

(2) from Sweet Savant which uses self rising flour and Greek Yogurt (I guess the salt is in the flour already).

My question is - which one is correct/better? If self-rising flour is the way to go, I'm going to need to make my own which I'm happy to do - that part is insanely easy.

Thanks in advance!

Tetsujin
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roundsquare
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  • Method 1 essentially didn't use any leavening agent so the texture would be quite distant from typical pizza, but for a thin and crisp crust it could work. Method 2 seems more plausible but I don't think yogurt is necessary in either cases. Also why try to avoid yeast? You need the dough to hydrate for an hour or two anyway. – user3528438 Apr 20 '20 at 06:59

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Self-rising flour is just flour with the addition of baking powder and salt*. So, it doesn't matter whether you use self-rising flour or make your own by combining these ingredients yourself.

* note: not all countries include salt in self-rising flour. There is no salt added in the UK "self-raising" mixture for example, but there salt added in the US and Canada.

Because of this, if you live in the US and are using a UK recipe, you will need to omit some or all of the salt in the recipe since self-rising flour already contains salt.

Conversely, if you are living in the UK and following a US recipe, you will need to add salt if using self-raising flour where it calls for self-rising flour.

Otherwise you could end up with no salt or more than you intended. It sounds like in your case your recipe assumes that self-rising flour has salt added.

One of our devoted readers also found that US self-rising flour has less baking powder than UK self-raising flour, raising doubts as to whether additional baking powder may be needed for some recipes.

Note: A good clue will be the spelling of "self-raising" vs. "self-rising" to determine whether salt is expected in your mix. And Brits also have a lot of other weird spelling, grammar, and nomenclature differences, such as calling desserts "puddings." Be cautious when dealing with these people. They are very suspicious.

In the end, I would suggest just using normal flour and adding salt and baking powder yourself. If you are using a recipe that calls for self-raising or self-rising or pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps flour, just find a similar recipe that calls for normal flour to see how much salt and baking powder should be used.

myklbykl
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    No salt in British self-r**a**ising flour, for sure. But that's a good recipe source give-away. US calls it rising, UK calls it raising, so you'd know whether to expect salt or not. – Tetsujin Apr 20 '20 at 08:09
  • @Tetsujin, I see several previous answers on this forum saying that self-rising flour are the same in the US and UK (just search on "self-rising UK" to find them), but I've also heard that there is no salt in the UK. If those other answers are wrong they should be corrected. Could it be regional? – myklbykl Apr 20 '20 at 14:43
  • I checked the ingredients list on the major brands & a couple of the big supermarkets. I'd never heard of having salt in flour so I wasn't expecting to find any. I didn't. We don't call it self-**rising** over here at all, so that search is going to be tainted with US-centric results. – Tetsujin Apr 20 '20 at 14:46
  • I've added a comment to one incorrect answer & added extra info in the big 'Translation' answer. – Tetsujin Apr 20 '20 at 14:57
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    Yes — I was going to comment there and saw your response, so thank you for doing that. – myklbykl Apr 20 '20 at 14:57
  • Yet again, we are *two countries separated by one language* ;) It's always fascinating to find a new difference i'd not heard of before, no matter what subject it's on. – Tetsujin Apr 20 '20 at 14:59
  • It might be worth adding the spelling difference as a guide to where the recipe may have been made for. rising vs raising would be a large clue as to whether or not salt would be expected in the flour itself. – Tetsujin Apr 20 '20 at 15:01
  • Do you mean in addition to what I've written above? – myklbykl Apr 20 '20 at 15:02
  • Yes. I just thought it might be a useful little note, that the spelling itself would be a big clue. [Bizarrely, until today I had never noticed you guys even spell it differently, I have always just read it as 'raising' without ever noticing.] – Tetsujin Apr 20 '20 at 15:07
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    OK, changes made. Yes, this whole situation certainly rises some eyebrows. – myklbykl Apr 20 '20 at 15:50
  • Lovely, thanks:) but to *rise* the stakes... Further research would seem to show that US self-rising has perhaps only 60% the baking powder UK self-raising has, meaning a US cook would have to add a bit more if using a UK recipe, as well as reduce salt. – Tetsujin Apr 20 '20 at 16:00