Andy,
If you look at pizza dough recipes, I think you will see that they all basically include the same ingredients, but also have significant differences. They will all have certain core ingredients--specifically, flour, yeast, water and salt. To these core ingredients, you can add a sweetener (usually sugar) or a fat (usually an oil). Where recipes will usually differ is in the style of dough to be produced. For example, a New York style dough will have high hydration levels (a lot of water relative to the weight of the flour), whereas a dough for a thin cracker-like crust will have far less--it will be very dry by comparison. The New York style dough will also require a reasonable amount of kneading to develop the gluten in the flour, whereas the thin cracker-like crust will require far less kneading since the objective is not to fully develop the gluten. By contrast with the two dough styles mentioned above, deep-dish pizza doughs will usually have a lot more fat, either in the form of an oil or shortening or butter, and possibly more sugar, and moderate hydration levels. The processing of the dough and baking procedures will also be different because of the need for a pan and longer bake times because of the substantially increased amount of food (cheese, other toppings, etc.) to be cooked. Other styles of dough, like Neapolitan or Neo-Neapolitan doughs, will have their own unique set of ingredients and percentages. A classic Neapolitan pizza dough, for example, includes only flour, yeast, salt and water, and no sweetener or fat.
Irrespective of what style of dough and pizza most appeals to you and you wish to master, what I think is important is to develop techniques that will allow you to produce a good dough on a consistent basis. Without consistency of its product, a pizzeria would soon go out of business. In a home environment, there are a lot of variables to contend with also, but it is equally important to achieve consistency in whatever you do so that you aren't always wondering or asking yourself what it was that went wrong when your pizza doesn't turn out like you had hoped or expected. Guessing wrong might even lead you to making changes that send you down another dead end.
To me, consistency and success in making pizzas means combining ingredients and using techniques in ways that respect the laws of chemistry and physics--that is, knowing when and how to combine and process the ingredients and, as importantly, what not to do. Also important to this process is to be sure that your ingredients all stay within prescribed ranges. Too much or too little of any of the ingredients mentioned above will have deleterious effects on your dough and, as a result, the finished product. The first thing I do when I look at a new recipe is to see whether the ingredients are in the prescribed ranges. If not, I either don't use the recipe or I try to see if I can repair it. Having a good starting recipe is very important, even though there may be many variations of it, reflecting different tastes and preferences.
As I have indicated before in prior postings, I write my recipes with my daughter-in-law in mind--with explicit, step-by-step instructions (often accompanied by the reasons) so that she can reliably and consistently make good pizzas. I usually go a few steps further than she might (she has no interest in understanding the science of pizzas), as by measuring temperatures of everything and weighing ingredients and dough balls, and so forth, but for my daughter-in-law, I just tell her the basic things she should know from a practical standpoint as she follows the recipes I give her: use cold water in the summer and warmer water in the winter, use cooler water or add a little bit of sugar if she wants to have a longer fermentation time or a longer time in the refrigerator before she uses the dough, don't mix salt with the yeast, use a rest period (autolyse) before adding the salt to the dough (to allow greater absorption of the water by the flour), use the windowpane test to know when the dough has been properly kneaded, and, measure the finished dough temperature to be sure that it is within the desired range for optimum fermentation. She has discovered that this is not rocket science, but without even realizing it, she is abiding by the laws of chemistry and physics that apply to dough production. She is also learning that baking, unlike other culinary skills--such as cooking--is much more of a scientific process, with careful observance of quantities, weights, interactions and temperatures. To be sure, there is also an "art" to making good pizzas, but that will come with time and will complement, not detract from, the technical aspects.
Peter
