The Pizza Dough

WORDS: PHOTOGRAPHY

Ingredients:

• 600g of Double Zero flour (any Italian brand works well — you should find this at a good local deli, but if you can’t a plain ‘00’ flour is fine too)
• 200g wholemeal flour
• 30g sea salt
• 3g fresh yeast or 2g dry yeast
• 50ml of extra virgin olive oil
• 500ml cold water

Directions:

Pour the water into a big bowl and add the sea salt until it’s completely dissolved. Next, begin to add the flour; this is done in three steps. First, add about one-third of the flour (using a wooden spoon to avoid the dough sticking to your hands).

Second, add the fresh (or dry) yeast, and dissolve it into the dough. Continue to add more flour until the dough does not stick to the bowl, then transfer it to a bench — keep working on the dough, adding a bit of flour on to it and the last touch of extra virgin olive oil, which will help to produce a nice crunchy pizza base and have a golden crust once it’s cooked. At this stage, the dough should have a nice silky and soft look; then cover it with a damp towel and leave it to rest for two hours.

After that, my tip is to cut the dough on the top side with a bread knife and check if there are any oxygen bubbles. This will be the final double-check of how leavened the dough is. You are now ready to portion the dough into small balls, which are usually by 200g to 260g don’t need to be more. Put these in the fridge to rest overnight.

The next day, take it out of the fridge two hours before you need to use it, as it needs to cool down at room temperature. The long leavened and the maturation process will give you a very light pizza.