Mains

I love pizza. Who doesn’t though? It’s one of life’s great pleasures. I really enjoy making my own pizza dough, there’s something incredibly therapeutic about the process. I’m fairly fussy about the recipe though. Fluffy, puffy dough is where it’s at, just like you get at a proper pizza place. Don’t get me wrong, the gluten free, cauliflower crusted ones are yum too, but more often than not I’m drawn to the real thing.

I recently invested in a pizza stone so needed to find a worthy recipe for it. This one doesn’t disappoint, it really is the ULTIMATE pizza dough. It’s a wonderful texture, full of flavour and gives a satisfying amount of puff when cooked on a stone. You can make several small medium to thin crust pizzas, or a few large, thick based pizzas, I’ve included instructions for both. If you haven’t tried making your own yeasted dough, give this recipe a whirl and I promise you’ll want to make it again and again.

The reason this recipe works so well is due to the very small amount of yeast used, the high water content and the long proving time. Although the first batch will take you the best part of a day to make, I tend to whip up a big batch and freeze several dough balls so I won’t have to make it again for a few weeks. Using less yeast is easier on your digestion too, so there are some benefits to taking your time with this one!

If you’re into bread making, you’ve probably already got a dough scraper, but if you haven’t I can’t recommend one enough. My Mum surprised me with one in the post a few years ago now and told me it ‘only costs 20p’ but will ‘probably be the most useful thing you’ll ever receive’. I had no idea what it would be of course, but I soon realised how invaluable this little bit of plastic was. You can use it to knead very wet dough, saving you time washing off sticky dough from your fingers. It also removes any excess dough from your kitchen counter tops in a jiffy (if you’ve ever tried to scrub off dried dough from the counter you’ll know how time consuming this can be). If you want one, this is the exact one I use. The pizza stone I use is here, it even comes with a peel – essential for quickly transferring your pizza to the oven.

I topped this pizza with a basic marinara sauce, sweet bite peppers, red onions, courgette ribbons and fresh thyme and basil. I really don’t miss the cheese at all, but if you’re looking for a great plant based cheese you can make at home, check out my friend Nathalie’s fabulous chèvre cheese recipe here.

If you try this recipe, I’d love to hear what you think! Please do leave me a comment below, or take a snap and tag me on Instagram (@bos.kitchen).

Happy pizza making,

Bo

xoxoxo

Ultimate pizza dough

 

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Prep time

6 hours

Cook time

8 mins

Total time

6 hours 8 mins

 

Author: Bo's Kitchen

Serves: 6 small pizzas, 4 large ones

Ingredients

• 1kg strong white bread flour
• 700g water
• 15g salt
• 2g yeast

Instructions

1. Throw all ingredients into a bowl and knead well for around 10 minutes. Use a dough scraper to knead it if you have one. Turn and knead briefly for a couple of minutes every 10 minutes for an hour.
2. After an hour, stretch dough out with your hands and return back to the bowl. Leave to rise for at least 4-6 hours.
3. Divide dough into 6 balls to make individual medium base pizzas, or 4 balls to make larger pizzas. Leave shaped balls for another hour to rise.
4. Wrap any dough balls you aren't using up in oiled clingfilm and freeze. Heat up pizza stone or baking tray for at least 15 minutes in your oven, at the hottest temperature (mine will go to about 220•c).
5. If you have a pizza peel, dust well with flour and stretch the dough out with your hands to form a rough base. Try to get the dough under 1.5cm thick for a medium base pizza. Top pizza and use peel to slide onto preheated pizza stone. Cook until golden and puffed up, usually about 8 minutes.

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