Pizza

Regular recipe

Biga

• 125g 00 farine flour
• 5g fresh yeast
• 125g warm water

Mix and leave in the fridge overnight

Dough

• 1kg strong white bread flour, plus a little extra for dusting
• 20g coarse semolina
• 25g fine sea salt
• 20g fresh yeast
• 650g water
• 30g extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra for coating the dough & your work surface

• All of the biga

• A little extra semolina, for dusting (later)

Mixer

Add the yeast to some of the flour, mixing in with your hands. If you suspect your yeast isn’t that fresh, add it to some of the (warmed) water and see if it bubbles after 10/15 minutes. Add the water to the mixing bowl, then biga, then the flour and the yeast mixture, in whatever form it now is in. Turn on the mixer with a dough hook at a very low speed for a few minutes making sure everything is well mixed. Then add the salt. Let that run for a minute and then add the olive oil. The salt helps produce more flavours and control the rate of fermentation so it shouldn’t be mixed with the yeast directly. The olive oil will ‘block’ the waater getting into the flour like a waterproof layer, so add this later to make sure the water, yeast and flour has had a chance to mix. Increase the speed of the mixer to a 4-6 range on the controls to get some energy into the dough.

When the dough starts to gather together and hold sort of as a ball, you are done and can turn the mixer off.

By hand

Follow the same basic principles as with a mixer but put the flour in first and then the water (and biga), rather than the water and then the flour. When using the mixer its best to add the water first because the dough hook won’t reach the bottom of the mixing bowl and so some flour can not properly mix.

Method

Once its well mixed (by hand its very hard to over mix) you can leave it to rest in the bowl for 10 minutes. This helps the glutens relax and the dough will be easier to manipulate.

Pour the dough onto the counter, do not add any more flour, and now use the slap and fold technique. keep going until you have formed the top and bottom of the dough, the surface has some smooth tension and air bubbles can start to be seen. Pour a touch more olive oil on and scrape it underneath. Put the dough in the bowl and in the fridge for a day but up to 3 days. More flavours will form if its longer, however you will probably want to use 5g less yeast if you expect to leave it for 3 days compared to 1, to slow the process.

The rest is skill and up to you to learn ;)

Gluten free pizza

• 500g Caputo farine 00 flour
• 10g yeast
• 400g water
• 15g olive oil
• 17g salt

This is extremely good gluten free pizza dough, but its a very different texture so just mix the ingredients very well and then leave in the fridge for atleast 24 hours.