Making a pizza base (help required)
- Thread starter flibbage0
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Man of Honour
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There was a recipe posted here a while back but basically make sure you use 00 grade pasta flour. Make sure it's quite wet and give it at least an hour to rise.
Once it's risen, roll it out into shape and put on a cast iron pan. Give it a bit to rise again.
After this, spread your toppings over the top and put the entire thing (in the pan) under the grill. Once the top is browned, take it out of the grill and put it over the hob for a while until it browns underneath.
This will be infinitely nicer than just sticking the whole thing in the oven
Once it's risen, roll it out into shape and put on a cast iron pan. Give it a bit to rise again.
After this, spread your toppings over the top and put the entire thing (in the pan) under the grill. Once the top is browned, take it out of the grill and put it over the hob for a while until it browns underneath.
This will be infinitely nicer than just sticking the whole thing in the oven
Soldato
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I've only used plain flour and it's tasted fine on all occasions. Guess I'll try it with proper flour one day and see if I can see a difference.
Man of Honour
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The flour is a fairly important part of the process but the cooking method is the most important part imo.
copied from a post of mine in another thread
my (or rather locatelli's) dough recipe:
If using oven you need something to put the pizza on, may be an upturned baking tray (or better still a stone.)
This makes 2 good size pizzas.
375 g strong while flour or 00, add 4 tablespoons of good olive oil, 200g of water, 10 g of yeast
If using dried yeast use slightly less and use 200g of warm water instead (and a tsp of sugar)
Mix all that together, either ten minutes by hand or a few mins in mixer with a dough hook. Add pinch of salt just before you finish mixing.
Take the dough ball put it on the worktop, dimple with your fingers to flatten it a bit, fold it in two and leave it 20 mins
After 20 mins cut the dough in to two for big pizzas or several for little ones, roll very thin with a rolling pin (this works fine and trying to spin it results in a doughy mess from experience!) thin as you can
put the pizza bases in the fridge for a few hours
get the oven on or bbq with the stone/upturned tray a good hour before you need it to get really hot.
top with whatever you like
bung it on the hot thing and cook for 10 mins
my (or rather locatelli's) dough recipe:
If using oven you need something to put the pizza on, may be an upturned baking tray (or better still a stone.)
This makes 2 good size pizzas.
375 g strong while flour or 00, add 4 tablespoons of good olive oil, 200g of water, 10 g of yeast
If using dried yeast use slightly less and use 200g of warm water instead (and a tsp of sugar)
Mix all that together, either ten minutes by hand or a few mins in mixer with a dough hook. Add pinch of salt just before you finish mixing.
Take the dough ball put it on the worktop, dimple with your fingers to flatten it a bit, fold it in two and leave it 20 mins
After 20 mins cut the dough in to two for big pizzas or several for little ones, roll very thin with a rolling pin (this works fine and trying to spin it results in a doughy mess from experience!) thin as you can
put the pizza bases in the fridge for a few hours
get the oven on or bbq with the stone/upturned tray a good hour before you need it to get really hot.
top with whatever you like
bung it on the hot thing and cook for 10 mins
Soldato
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I think wholemeal on it's own would be fairly heavy. Plain is a bit too soft and doesn't have as much flavour, strong bread flour is what you need. That said I have seen plain used, especially in recipes where you use less yeast and prove the dough for longer.
This is a good basic pizza dough.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pizza-recipes/pizza-dough
Some other bits of advice;
Get the pizza into the oven as soon as the topping is on, stops it going soggy. If you can't do this bake the base a little before you top it.
Try to find dry mozzarella and mix it with chedar. This is a good general purpose combination. Normal moz can be a bit soggy (it also can get overwhelmed by strong flavours) and cheddar on it's own ends are fairly greasy.
Don't over do the topping, too much topping will fall off. Too many toppings makes it hard for you balance the flavours.
Don't just do tomato sauce. White sauces are good, as is pesto.
Last time I took pizzas to a party, I did a basic mozzarella, tomato, olive and basil. I then did spinach goats cheese & pesto and bacon, leek sauce and tarragon which I then grated parrmessan over once it was cooked.