Recipe: Pizza dough

Who doesn't like pizza?  It's one of the most loved foods around and even better if you make it yourself.  Homemade pizza also makes for a great interactive theme party - everybody will show up, everyone will want to try their hand at the dough, and if you have a good selection of toppings, there's no telling what crazy and delicious concoctions will result.  My brother-in-law Luis and I teamed p on this for a party and it was a roaring success - at one point we had a bacalao pizza, and the last one of the night had cheese rolled into the outer crust.  What I really like about this dough is that you can have a thicker crust if you like, but if you want to have a thin crust, you can roll this out super thin, and once it bakes up, as long as you don't have a ridiculous amount of toppings, the crust will hold straight without flopping (a major flaw in many thin crust pizzas).  This recipe is the basic dough - by all means take the liberty of adding in some fresh chopped herbs or cracked pepper to really jazz it up.  We mixed this up old school on the table, but you can use a mixer if you want to speed things up.

You will need:

500g                   flour (plus some for bench work)

33g                     fresh yeast (or 11g active dry)

10g                     sugar

5g                       salt

30ml                   olive oil

270ml                 warm water

Method:

 - bloom the yeast in the warm water with a bit of the sugar

 - mix the flour, salt and the rest of the sugar

 - make a well on the table with the flour

 - add the oil and the bloomed yeast water into the well

 - using your fingers and moving in a circular motion, start swirling the liquid

 - gradually expand the circle to incorporate the flour

 - once all the flour is incorporated, knead the dough

 - add any flour necessary to get the dough to a smooth ball

 - place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let proof to double the size

 - punch down the dough, and depending on the size of pizza and crust thickness, cut into 2, 3, or 4

 - roll the balls and let proof again

 - lightly oil your pizza pan

 - roll out your dough to the desired size and thickness

 - transfer to the pan

 - dock the dough  

 - dress it up

 - bake at 350F - 400F depending on thickness (higher temperature for thin) for about 10 - 15 minutes

 - dig in

pepperoni stuffed crust pizza