THIN CRUST PIZZA AND GARLIC DOUGH BALLS

 

SUPER THIN STONE BAKED PIZZA

 

Practising using my pizza peel as I am on a four week countdown to having a pizza oven party, well 4 week countdown I still have to build my clay pizza oven !  So before all the really hard work starts, which I will be blogging each stage of the build I am having fun making all different types of dough, testing storage and most of all trying to find the perfect dough that is super thin, crispy, light and really tasty for my pizzas.

 

I am really excited and cant wait to have wood fired baked pizzas, breads and so much more.

 

INGREDIENTS

 

15g fresh yeast

500g strong white flour

10g salt

50g olive oil

320g water

 

So simple rub the yeast into the flour like breadcrumbs, add the salt and then add the oil to the water and mix into the flour to form a loose dough.

 

Turn out on to your work top, no flour needed at this stage, and work air into the dough as explained below and then rest.  Once your dough is ready to use push or roll or throw the dough if you want to a really thin almost see through base and top with some reduced tomato pasatta and oregano and a little grated mozzarella, any toppings you choose, my favourites in order are pepperoni or Hawaiian or a BBQ meat feast !  Today I just had fresh tomatoes, some really good quality buffalo mozzarella, green peppers and fresh basil to finish off with. 

 

To cook a really good pizza our ovens are not really hot enough, what we really need is a 400 degrees oven, (hence the impending wood fired clay oven), but mine only goes to 230 degrees, but the pizza stone helps raise that cooking temp to 250 degrees which helps with creating a nice crispy base.  My 9" pizza only took 5 minutes to cook at this temp and was one of the best I have eaten, so I really cant wait until I have cooked in the clay wood fired oven as people say you have not had a pizza until you have had it from a wood fired oven.

 

 

Working air into my dough, this is a lovely relaxing way to work air into the dough, it takes approx five minutes of flopping over the dough and rolling it back on its self trapping in the air, when the dough is ready to be rested it comes soft and smooth with a silky look.  At this point I form the dough into a ball and place in a floured bowl to rest for approx. 1 hr until doubled in size, I then divided the dough into three balls and rested again for 10 minutes before pushing out the dough for the pizza bases, nice and thin.

 

Take a little dough and roll into a rectangle, in the centre place some butter, chopped garlic and a little fresh parsley, fold over one half, half way and do the same with the other side, so in effect you know have a sausage, cut into 10 balls and cook for 3-4 minutes and then enjoy these lovely dough balls bursting with creamy butter and garlic.