This post is only going to be how to make the pizza dough itself (enough for 4 single pizzas). Afterall, the wonderful thing about pizza is that you can personalise your toppings. Just a word of advice for when you do top your pizza: things that need cooking more (e.g. meats) put them nearer the base when organising your toppings.
| Time: relatively quick in comparison to most pizza bases - 3 hours What you need:
| I know that meany dough recipes tell you to put the flour in the bowl, make a well and put the yeast in the well. How many of you have done that for the yeast not to work and then you've wasted most of your ingredients. Well, I'm going to ask you to trust me...... Sprinkle the yeast and the sugar over 1 1/4 cups of warm water. I don't know the temperature I use....I tend to boil the kettle, make a cup of tea and use the water from the kettle. Wait about 10 minutes. If the yeast is now creamy in colour, tad-da it has worked. If not then just throw away and start again.....only yeast, sugar and water wasted. Mix together the flour and salt. Add this to the yeast-sugar-water mixture. Use your hands to bring it into a rough ball. Cover the bowl with a wet tea-towel for 5 minutes. On a lightly floured surface knead your dough for about 5 minutes. If it starts to get a bit dry and crumbly, add water a tablespoon at a time. If it is too sticky then just sprinkle some flour on top and work into the dough. Put a little olive oil into a bowl and distribute around the bowl. Place your dough ball into the bowl and roll around to cover the surface with oil. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes the dough should have doubled. If not just wait a while longer (afterall we already know that our yeast is fine). Divide the dough into four and make into balls. Put the dough balls on a floured surface and cover with a damp tea-towel for 2 hours, or until they have doubled in size. You can now shape it, top it, bake it! |
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