Pizza dough, revised

With the death of my trusty Kenwood mixer, well not death but I need to order a couple of capacitors and get out the trusty soldering iron, I’ve had to revisit my trusty pizza dough recipe, I used to make a pretty standard 60% hydration dough but recently have been experimenting with the water content of the dough and have found nudging up the liquid content to 80% and adding about 5% fat, in the form of olive oil, has drastically improved my crust. I mentioned earlier, the trusty mixer is dead, and quite frankly I’ve become pretty lazy when it comes to kneading dough, I rely pretty heavily on it, and hey I broke a bone in my wrist so kneading is not that pleasant at the moment, excuses excuses, anyway this is my no knead method that doesn’t take 24+ hours but does involve a little more labour than mix and forget. It will require a good 3-4 hours of your time, but probably no more than 10 minutes of attention, the initial mixing, and then hourly folding, and by the end of it you should have a wonderful light puffy dough.

500 g flour
400 g warm water
25 ml Olive oil
5 g salt
2 g yeast
2 g sugar/honey

Stir together the water, sugar and yeast, let it sit until the yeast has bloomed and you have nice frothy mixture.

Mix together the salt and olive oil, make a well and pour in the yeast-water along with the oil. Set aside for 30-45 minutes, this will give the gluten a chance to hydrate.

After the dough has rested, and risen, probably about doubled, use a spatula to bring one edge up to the centre, rotate the bowl 90° and repeat until all four ‘sides’ have been folded over 3 or 4 times, let the dough rest for another hour and repeat. This is a long fermenting dough and the folding will be repeated 3 more times, about 4 hours rising time in total.

Pick off a lump of dough, roll thin, trying to use as little extra flour as possible, and cook in a very hot oven (250-300°C) on a pizza stone that has been preheating for 40-60 minutes until blistered and golden.

Lamb pizza

A Middle-Eastern inspired pizza for dinner tonight. It starts off just like every other pizza, with a basic dough. Although, instead of a variety of toppings finished off with melting cheese, this has a rich spiced lamb mince drizzled with olive oil, yoghurt and lemon juice.

Place a heavy tray near the bottom of the oven and preheat to 230°C.

Finely dice some celery, carrot and onion. Soften the vegetables in a pan with a little olive oil. When the onion is translucent sprinkle in a teaspoon (or so) of coriander, cumin, thyme and smoked paprika, add dried chilli flakes (as much or as little as you like). Cook until aromatic. Add about 500 grams of minced lamb, cook until brown. Finally add a jar (500 ml) of passata (or whiz up a can of tomatoes), cook until almost dry. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Set the meat aside to cool down.

Take a ball of dough and evenly roll out in to a thin round. Place the rolled out dough on a lined tray. Spread out a layer of cooled lamb mixture on the rolled out dough. Slide the pizza on to the hot tray in the oven.

Cook for about 6 minutes, it should be puffed up and brown around the edges, if unsure lift an edge to check if it's cooked underneath.

Remove the cooked pizza from the oven and sprinkle with some chopped parsley, a swirl of yoghurt, a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.

I find the best way to eat this is fold it in half, pick it up and munch away, it's even better if you stuff a bit of herb salad in the middle.

Pizza

I finally used the pizza stone I recently bought. You can find my pizza dough recipe here. The only difference is we cook our pizza at about 260°C.


A few toppings for the pizza, simple passata for the sauce. Golden rule though less is more on your pizza.


We usually make thin bases, and like serving it with a good pile of rocket and folding it in half.

Books and pizza

Love finding old cook books at thrift shops, latest additions are Graham Kerr's Galloping Gourmet and Pearl L Bailey Foods: preparation and serving, which is more like a 1920s home-economics text book, still a good read and very informative.

On the way thanks to amazon On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee and one I've been wanting to get my hands on for a while Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman


I Finally bought a stone for the oven, I was pining after was a hefty $100 so I opted for the cheaper $20 model, but will see how often it gets used for bread baking and the like, then I might upgrade. My pizza recipe is here, and I highly recommend going for a mix of fine semolina (flour) and strong wheat flour.

Pizza - Photos

Cooked for 6 minutes at 240°C

Bread Dough

basic bread dough (great for pizza)

1kg Strong(Bread) Flour (a mix of fine semolina (flour) and strong wheat flour makes for a crunchier crust)
600 ml Warm Water
1 Tbsp Yeast
Salt to Taste (flour can take a lot of salt)
Pinch of sugar

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the water and let it sit for about 10 minutes until the yeast blooms (froths).

Work the flour and salt in to the the liquid bringing together and then tip out on to a work surface and kneed for about 10 minutes (until the dough is smooth and elastic).

Put in a covered bowl and let sit for about 30 minutes to an hour (until it has at least doubled in size, depending on room temperature etc this could take longer than an hour).

Once it has doubled you could pull off balls and roll out in to pizza bases, but it is better to knock it back and let it double in size again.

Take a chunk of dough about the size of an orange and on a floured surface roll out with a rolling pin making sure it doesn't stick. I prefer a thin base for my pizza but you can have what ever thickness you desire, just add a minute or two for cooking times.

Place a tray on the middle shelf of your oven and heat to 225°C (fan if you have it)

Once the oven is hot, and your pizza assembled (best to do this just before it goes in the oven).
Take the tray out of the oven and slide the pizza on to it and put back in the oven (I find it easiest to have the pizza on a sheet of baking paper and transfer that to the tray).

If you have a thinnish base and not overloaded with toppings the pizza should only take 10 minutes max.

You can easily get 6 - 8 thin crust pizzas from the quantities in this recipe.

You can also use it to make pita breads.

1. Don't use semolina in the dough mix.
   
2. Use a smaller ball of dough and don't roll too thick.
3. Have the tray in the lower third of the oven and temperature the highest your oven will go.
4. Place the rolled out dough on the tray (don't take it out of the oven, but be careful not to burn yourself)
5. They will take about 2 minutes to cook.