It’s pizza
You probably need a mixer with a dough hook to make this. You can mix it by hand if you wish, it’s entirely possible and a good work out too. I’m doing it in a mixer in case your wondering.
250 g OO Flour
250 g plain Flour
7 g dry yeast
12 g salt flakes
600 - 700 ml room temp water
20 ml olive oil / 2 teaspoons
Dissolve the yeast in 1 cup of the water until bubbly.
Add flour to the mixing bowl along with the yeast water and olive oil.
Start mixing on slow and gradually add more water, you want a wet sticky dough.
Once it’s starting to come together , add the salt to the dough and keep mixing.
The aim is to develop the gluten and get stretchy dough. increase the speed of the mixer to about medium and let it run. It can take a while.
After about 5 minutes check the dough by stretching it between your fingers - does it break or stretch ?
If it breaks keep mixing and maybe add a little more water, if it stretches give it another few minutes with the mixer on medium speed just to be sure.
Time for the first prove. - cover the bowl loosely and leave on a bench for around an hour , you want it to double in size and become a little gassy and bubbly.
After an hour or so tip out the dough on to a floured bench and start portioning out the dough.
There’s a bit of trial and error here to find out how big your dough balls should be - somewhere in the range of 250 to 400 grams should be good. This depends on how big you want to the pizza to be and also where you are going to cook it.
I think we used to do 400g of dough for a 15 - 16 inch pizza. In the Gozney roccbox pizza oven that i have i usually make the dough about 275/300 grams.
Ok, portion out the dough according to weight, then roll into balls ( there is a trick to this - you create a dome with the dough by folding the outside corners into the middle, then flip the ball over and cup each side with your hands, then rotate your cupped hands clockwise while using the tension of the dough against the bench to form a tight ball. ) seems complicated but it’s easy.
Place your dough balls in an airtight container and put in the fridge for 24 hours - yes this isn’t a quick one.
About an hour before you are going to make your pizza take a dough ball out of the fridge and let it rest at room temp.
You should end up with soft stretchy dough that can be easily pulled out to shape.
Ok so if want to know how to stretch into shape without using a rolling pin, you can try this.
Press the ball down around the edges about an inch - all the way around that’s your crust, you should have a mound of dough in the middle, stretch the middle out with the palm of your hand while rotating the dough in a circle, the dough should start to become a flat disc. keep going until you have the size you want, be careful not to stretch holes in it though.
There’s obviously a few different ways to do this, but this is how i do it. Feel free to do the old twisting fling it in the air if you want, i’ve never had much success doing that and usually the dough ends up on the floor which is ahh - counter productive to say the least.
Good luck.
More tips from my limited experience making pizza.
use the OG San Marzano tomatoes for the sauce - just tomatoes and salt.
Fresh mozzarella is way better
No shredded ham - ever.
Simple is best - don’t load up on ingredients
Make sure any meat is pre cooked before putting on a pizza
if you want to reheat pizza - do it in a frying pan with a little olive oil or in the oven - skip the microwave.
the pizza dough will last a few days in the fridge, but not more than 3.
Pre made pizza dough is a no for me
Is it worth having a pizza oven at home - yes, yes it is.
