Home made pizza

2016-02-13 20.25.34

As Paul Hollywood says in his book Bread, there are two secrets to great pizza at home: a very hot oven and a very thin base. I would add a third secret: great ingredients.

We use a bakestone that makes sure the base is well baked and crispy, as it gives the pizza base additional bottom heat. Of course, for this you will need a confident hand when sliding the pizza in the oven, as the pizza is assembled on a flat tray and slided onto the bakestone. A generous dusting of semolina and flour mixture makes sure the pizza base is not stuck to the flat tray.

Home made pizza

  • Servings: 3 to 4 bases
  • Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients

250 g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
5 g salt
30 ml / 20 g olive oil
5 g fast-action yeast
180 ml water
semolina, for dusting

Instructions

  1. Mix the flour, salt, olive oil, yeast and water together in a bowl of a KitchenAid fitted with a dough hook.
  2. Start the machine on setting 2. After a minute or so, check if the dough comes together without leaving crumbs of flour behind. If there are crumbs, add small splashes of water to combine the dough in a homogenous mass.
  3. Continue kneading for another 10 to 15 min.
  4. Leave the dough to rise for at least 1 to 2 h at room temperature, or over night in a fridge.
  5. Heat the oven to 230˚C. Put the bakestone in the oven, on a rack in the lower third of the oven.
  6. Shape the dough in three to four balls and roll each one as thin as you dare.
  7. Use a mix of semolina and regular flour to dust the flat tray you will use to transfer the pizza on the bakestone.
  8. Transfer the rolled out pizza dough to the flat tray and add the toppings of your choice. We use a mix of salt, tomato passata, and oregano to start, then some cheese (e.g., mozzarella or gruyere), some vegetables (e.g., mushrooms, caramelized onions, or very thinly sliced zucchini), and some meat (e.g., cooked ham).
  9. Slide the pizza carefully and confidently on the bakestone. Bake for 8 to 10 min, until the topping is golden and the base is crisp.

pizza-hand

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