Pizza Recipe

Well i have to tell you that pizza is probably my favourite food in the world and after trying all the different pizza's there are i decided to start making my own. There are a lot of recipe's out there that are quite difficult and time consuming, so I have tried to make it a more simple process with my recipe. here it is:

For the dough:

- Roughly 454g(1 pound) of flour. Usually best to use strong white flour but if not use what ever you have. Try not to use self raising flour, may have unexpected results.

- 1 tea spoon of yeast. Now i use the dried yeast that comes in those little sachets, you can pick them up very cheap from you local supermarket.

- 8ml of warm water. I use a measuring jug for this, if you haven’t got one then its about a cup full. You need to heat the water so that when you mix it with the yeast it can begin to ferment, I do this by putting it in a saucepan and heating it for about a minute on a high setting. If the water is too hot it will kill the yeast, so you need to test it with your finger. If you can put your finger in and keep it there its not too hot.

- 1 table spoon of olive oil. Don't worry if you haven't got any oil you can still make the pizza, it just might have a slightly different texture.

Right you can make the dough in two ways you can knead it by hand or use a bread making machine, most bread making machines have a pizza dough setting.

When making the dough by hand first start by pouring the flour onto a clean work surface. Create a hole in the flour making it look a bit like a meteor crater then pour the water into the middle of the crater so it fills up. Add the yeast followed by the oil. You can now slowly mix the flour in by folding the flour crater inwards, slowly swirling it in with the water/yeast mix. When the mix slowly start to thicken it becomes more pliable, at this point you can start to knead or roll it. You may need a drawing pin.

Traditionally the kneading process is one of the most important stages of making the dough, i wouldn’t worry too much about the nuances of kneading and just do it as you feel comfortable. Once you are happy that you have push pounded and roll your dough to perfection roll it into a ball, put it in a bowl, cover it with a tea towel, and leave it for about an hour.

This process is called 'proving' the dough, leaving it allows the dough to rise, sometimes doubling in size. Some might say leave the dough longer but i wouldn't worry too much, I have made good pizza after only leaving the dough for 45 minutes.

If you find that you dough is too wet or sticky then you can add more flour as you knead it, if its too hard or firm then just add a small amount of water to the mix. You can add salt or sugar to the mix if you want although traditional pizza dough making doesn’t use such modifiers.

Come back soon for my pizza sauce recipe...