200g Water
26g Olive Oil
8g Dried Yeast
11g Sugar (Demerera/brown)
100g Strong Bread Flour (for the batter)
250g Plain Flour
2 live Flour Weevils (or to taste)
The above measurements are extremely rough,
don't shit yourself about getting them exact, I hate all of that.
Topping
Tomato purée
Italian Salami
Thyme
1 Medium Onion
1/2 a Bulb of Garlic
1 Ball of Mozzarella
Mature Cheddar
Ground Black Pepper Corns
Instructions - How to do it!
First off, by following these instructions you're accepting that I hold no responsibility
for any injury which you may sustain, you follow my baking notes by your own free will,
and if the person doing the cooking is under 18 years of age, I recommend that all
of the following instructions be supervised at all times by a responsible adult.
We're going to be using sharp knives and hot hobs/ovens/ baking tins.
Now, with care, let's begin!
Heat the water and the olive oil in a pan, on a very low heat, until it feels nice and warm,
not hot at all, just above body temperature -
!! obviously check from early on so you don't leave it heating up and burn yourself!! There's oil in there!
it'll be warm enough in about a minute or something just check often.
(should you ever burn yourself, run the burn under the cold tap for as long as you can stand,
then wrap in cling film until you get to the Accident and Emergency/Walk in Centres.)
Back to the recipe
(really if you need me to tell you these things, you shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen,
but I want you safe, so take care)
Add the yeast and the sugar in a mixing bowl of your choice and add the warm water/oil mix:
I like to add a little bit at a time whilst mixing the yeast and sugar in to a little paste,
then a more diluted paste etc
But basically, hoy the water/oil in.
(I use a whisk but that's just personal preference, you could use a wooden spoon
or even just your fingers if you wanted to, it's not important.)
Once the yeast and sugar have dissolved in to a lovely sweet yeasty smelling liquid,
start adding your strong bread flour, mix it in until there are no lumps in the mix.
Cover your bowl with cling film or a wet tea towel to stop the dough from getting a skin on it,
and leave it in a nice warm place for 30 minutes.
(This is called proving, you're proving the yeast is working, you can ignore this step later on when
you get confident, if you're pushed for time.).
A great tip where to leave the bowl is somewhere I never thought of, IN THE OVEN!! Haha
Put the oven on Max temperature for about a minute, then turn the oven off!!
put the bowl in the oven to prove (but don't do as I did, and put a plastic bowl in the oven and
forget to turn the oven off! I don't recommend it).
After 30 minutes your dough will be full of bubbles and spongy,
take it out and add the plain flour; bit by bit, until it starts to come together to form a dough,
don't add it all in one go because you may not need it all (excuse the pun).
I used about 272g of plain flour but I'd weighed out 300g,
I think it's better to have more than enough as opposed to not enough,
but if you put all your flour in, in one go, you'll knack your dough.
Dough tells you when it's had enough flour
you don't need to weigh it out, just begin kneading the dough until it starts sticking to your hands,
then add a sprinkling of more flour, and knead and knead and knead adding flour as the dough sticks, until after a few minutes of kneading you'll find it wont really stick to your hands much, or the bowl.
Keep kneading, and sprinkling flour on the dough if it sticks to the bowl or your hands,
until the dough is elastic like, bouncy and stretchy, it'll take about 5 to 8 minutes.
Once you're happy that you have a springy bit of dough, put a small amount of olive oil on it,
and a small amount to "grease" the mixing bowl, this helps get the dough out, later on:
cover the bowl again and put it in your oven again, but this time to rise, for one hour or until
it's doubled in size.
When it's looking lovely and swollen, take it out and push the air out of your mix,
chop this particular mix in half as it will make 2 thin based 10" pizzas (or one big thick based pizza).
Rub olive oil all over your pizza tray, even if it's "none stick",
you'd be amazed at how sticky, "none stick" can be.
Either use your hands to shape it in to the pizza tin shape, or roll it out with a rolling pin,
apparently Italians don't do that, but it works for me, pretty much as well as not rolling it,
so do what you prefer.
When the dough is in the pizza tin, rub some tomato purée over it, cover the dough with cling film
and let it sit in the oven again for another hour.
This lets the dough rise, and lets the little yeasties pump away until their heart's content,
which is what gives us the bubbles in the gluten strands of the bread.
When the dough has risen/doubled in size, I put 4 circles of the salami on, you know?
12 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 9 o'clock,
then sprinkle the rest of the topping on, as you like.
Bake it in the oven on gas mark 6 - about 200 - for about 8 minutes,
but check it after about 4 or 5 minutes to make sure it's not done or burning.
It's done when the dough either springs back or it's crispy on the sides,
depends how well done you want it.
Using oven gloves, remove from oven.
let it cool for a few minutes on a wire rack, then
chop it up and scran it.
Delicious!!!
Freeze any cold bits that you want to use another day,
you can also freeze this dough when it's first been mixed and kneaded - thaw it out in the fridge,
then follow the above instructions, champion!!
Notes, post scranning.
I prefer the crust to be softer, so I'd either use milk instead of water,
or I'd take it out of the oven sooner.
Or, I could maybe bake it on a lower heat, for longer, I don't know,
I'll have to try it and come back to you.
The base itself was lovely, really good.
The topping was delicious, but I didn't need the entire onion or the entire ball of mozzarella.
I'd chop the salami in the future, so it didn't want to come off all in one go when I bit it.
I ended up folding a slice over too, like a "calzone" - it was delicious, I'm telling you now :)
Here's a top tip, if you have a pizza tin with raised edges, it's hard to get the pizza out,
so oil the sides and place a little flap of pizza dough over the edges,
at like 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions, you know?
Then when it's baked, you can lift it out no bother.
Top tip, that!
:D
Now fuck off and make a pizza!! :)
