Perfect Pizza Dough

by bfbaker

 

It’s all good and well taking a pizza out the freezer, or dropping a call to your local take-away but there’s something really satisfying about making your own; you can make it fancy with prosciutto and caramelised pears, or make it spicy with tons of jalapeños and pepperoni or, let your kids go wild in the kitchen with all sorts of veggies, cheese and meats. In fact, if you have wee ones, or are an aunt or uncle or grown up cousin (can you tell I’m speaking from experience here?) of kids this is a great load of fun to have with them. I’m all for getting children in the kitchen, teaching them what goes into their food, and pizza is – in my experience – an excellent way to get anyone interested in anything.

This is a super simple recipe that makes a gorgeously crisp pizza base; this week I made a garlic bread/pizza-y thing with it but, as I said, you can throw whatever you’d like on top of this sucker and it’ll taste fab.

This makes two thin crust 10” pizzas.

Recipe

350g strong white bread flour

4g active dried yeast

2 tsp salt

13ml olive oil

25ml warm milk

160ml warm water

1. Combine together the flour, yeast and salt. Add the warm milk and oil and slowly add the warm water. I totally cheat and use my mixer/bread hook at this point and let it do the sticky hard work.

2. Once the dough is fully combined and kneaded until soft, pop it into a clean bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let the dough prove for an hour.

3. When the hour is up, and the dough has doubled in size, you need to knock it back and knead it once more. This time even I do it by hand, time to get those mitts dirty.

4. Once you’ve finished kneading cut the dough into as many separate pieces as you’ll need then pop on a tray, under the damp towel again, for a further thirty minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 220.

6. Knead the dough a final time before rolling it out and topping.

7. Pop in the oven for 6-8 minutes, or until the crust is a nice golden brown, and enjoy!

If you want to make the garlic bread like I did place 5 cloves of garlic in 150ml of olive oil and place over a slow heat for 8-12 minutes. Brush the oil on the dough before it goes in the oven and, if you want, take the cooked garlic out of it’s skin and lay it on top of the bread for an extra garlicky kick. Sprinkle a little basil on the bread when it’s out the oven and enjoy!