Friends of mine know that I am a lover of good pizza, and I mean really good pizza. There are some fantastic pizzerias out there in Sydney such as Franks, Napoli in Bocca and Ventunos to name just a few, but there are also some absolutely shocking incarnations of this wonderful dish.

For the past decade I have been on what some would call a quest, or perhaps more of an odyssey to replicate that awesome traditional Italian pizza taste at home.

Most recipes that you see on the internet or in books will call for you to dissolve yeast in luke warm water with some sugar, mix in the flour and let it rise for an hour or until “doubled in size”. This will give you a very average pizza (believe me, I have tried).

Most pizzerias run their ovens at between 450C and 550C so they can cook a thin based pizza in minutes. Most home ovens will struggle to get up to 250C.

To make a really top notch pizza at home you need to get the timing right between cooking the crust so it’s light and fluffy and melting the cheese without burning it. To do this we will make a very wet dough and give that dough time to ferment. The yeast will slowly react with the natural sugars in the flour and give you a light and naturally sweet crust.

It’s worth reading this entire post before you jump in the deep end as a little bit of planning is required.

I now share with you dear readers the culmination of my quest ...

The humble pizza is a simple rustic dish with very few ingredients and as such it is vitally important to use top quality produce.

It’s best to avoid the pre-mix already grated cheeses from the supermarket. They will all claim to be the “perfect pizza blend” but really aren’t that good at all.

For around the same price you can get nobs of very good quality mozzarella from your local deli or Harris Farm Markets.

Traditional Italian pizza is usually made with Buffalo Mozzarella, but you need a REALLY hot oven to cook this properly otherwise it just congeals into a globby mess. Cows milk mozzarella will work fine at home, just look for one that is whiteish/pale in colour, not glow in the dark yellow like the “Perfect Italiano” stuff :)

Also, thinly slice the mozzarella ball with a sharp knife or on a Chinese mandolin rather than grating it.

Yeast

A lot of recipes out there on the internet call for the use of filtered water. Feel free to try this if you like, but the quality of the tap water in Sydney is pretty good compared to a lot of other places in the world so I don’t tend to bother.

Diastatic Malt Powder

This can be a difficult ingredient to get your hands on as you won’t find it at your local supermarket but well worth trying to get some. Diastatic Malt Powder helps convert the starch found in flour into sugars which are eaten up by the yeast over the extended fermentation process. You only need a small amount but it makes a huge difference.

You can order it online here or try your local health food shop or even home brew shop (after all beer is just liquid bread!)

If you can’t find Diastatic Malt Poweder you can get small packets of “Bread Improver” from your supermarket – try this instead.

A lot of homewares stores sell overpriced “volcanic pizza stones” that are only about 5mm thick and cost upwards of $20. Your best bet is to go down to your local tile shop (Amber Tiles/CTM) and ask them for a couple of unglazed terracotta tiles. They will sell you some samples from out back for around $5 and they will be 2-3 times the thickness of a commercial pizza stone. The thicker stone will help retain more heat when placed in the oven and help give you better results.

Make sure you soak your tile in cold water for at least an hour before you place it in the oven, this will stop it from cracking.

Never clean it with detergents as the tile will absorb the soap and your pizza will end up tasting like Palmolive.

The worst thing you can do is to roll your dough out on wooden shopping boards as the wood absorbs moisture out of the dough and dries it out. Instead lightly dust your bench or counter top with flour and use it directly. If you have a marble chopping board then sensational!

Get a good set of digital scales for your kitchen so you can accurately measure your ingredients.

An enormous amount of engineering has gone into the pizza trays I see around the shops. You can even get ones with little holes cut in the base to allow the air to flow through with the promise of a crispier crust.

The reality is that they are a complete waste of time. You will get much better results cooking your pizza directly on a stone.

I’ve destroyed so many pizzas trying to get it from the counter and onto the stone. The best technique I have discovered is to actually place the dough base on a sheet of baking paper / grease proof paper and then put your toppings on.

To get your pizza in and out of the oven you can either

a)      Use a pizza peel to slide the paper in and out like a pro (you can pick them up from Homewares or Catering Supply companies for $20-$30 and if you’re going to make a lot of pizza at home it’s a worthwhile investment).

Or

b)      Take a large oven/baking tray and turn it upside down.

Place the baking paper on the top of the tray, roll out your dough and place on the paper to apply toppings.

 Practice makes perfect

The key thing to remember is that practice makes perfect. If this is your first time working with such a wet dough or making pizza at home don’t be disheartened if your pizza doesn’t come out looking perfectly rounded and amazing the first time. It has taken me many years of trial and error (and many shocking pizzas fed to the dog) to get to this stage.

 

Okay, so enough of me being all philosophical about this stuff, onto the details ...

This recipe for Pizza base makes for a very wet dough which helps give you that great soft chewy fluffy crust that we all desire instead of a dense brick that most other home recipes provide.

Because this is such a wet dough you don’t actually have to knead it like in traditional recipes, instead you let the yeast do all the work for you to produce a soft subtle finished product.

I use a combination of high protein bread flour with a little bit of wholemeal flour thrown in. Feel free to use all bread flour (just combine the weights) but I find the combination gives the crust a little more texture and has a bit of a “rustic” feel to it.

I also do not use any olive oil in my pizza dough as it is strictly forbidden by the “Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana” the governing body for certified pizza artisans :)

This recipe will give you about 6 pizzas, but I like to save at least 1 to mix in with my next batch of dough (see section at end on refreshing your dough).

Mix the flours, yeast, salt and diastatic malt powder in a large non-reactive mixing bowl and using a wooden spoon make a well in the centre.

Slowly pour in the water, make sure it’s not too hot or too cold as this can kill the yeast.

Spend a good couple of minutes stirring and mixing the dough to make sure all the ingredients are combined. It should look like a slushy mess :)

Loosely cover the bowl with cling wrap making sure there is a little bit of a gap to let the gases escape and leave it sit on the bench for 4-5 hours. During this time the dough will rise rapidly and then collapse in on itself. If you leave it out overnight or for longer than the 4-5 hours this will be okay.

Once the dough has collapsed, cover the bowl and place it in the fridge for a minimum of 24 hours up to a maximum of 2 weeks.

Over this time the dough will develop even more complex flavours. Yes the dough will keep for up to 2 weeks, covered in the fridge!

The morning you’re planning on making your pizzas, pull the dough out of the fridge and leave it on a counter top somewhere to take the chill off. The time the dough has spent fermenting will have changed it from being a sticky mess to being a subtle and elastic dough.

Soak your pizza stone or unglazed terracotta tile in cold water and leave for at least an hour.

Lightly dust your work surface with flour and using your hands slide the dough out of the bowl. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO KNEAD THE DOUGH.

Gently work out into an even shape with your hands and divide into 6 using a dough cutter, knife or even scissors.

Alternatively, if you are only making 1 pizza you can cut knobs of dough off about the size of your first directly from the bowl.

Fold your dough into a tight ball by stretching it out between your hands, holding the tops with your thumbs and tucking the edges of the dough underneath itself with your fingers. Work the dough into a ball by repeating this action stretching the surface area out and turning the dough in a circular motion.

There is a good video (embedded below) from ExpertVillage.Com on Shaping a Boule (ball) of bread. It's meant for larger loves of bread but the technique can be easily applied here on a smaller scale. 

Place the dough balls on a floured work surface and cover with a clean tea towel to prevent it from going crusty. Leave it rest for about an hour.

During this time place your stone/tile on the top shelf of your oven and crank the temperature up to max. Let the oven and stone heat up for at least an hour.

Tear off a piece of baking paper about 30cm square (just bigger than your pizza or about the same size as your stone) and dust it with semolina.

Using the fingers of both hands gently press down on your dough ball and work it into a flat disc. Pick the edge of the disc up in both hands and rotate it between your hands like you would turn the steering wheel of a car (practice the motion and you’ll get what I mean). This will help stretch the dough out into a thin pizza shape.

It will take practice to get the right shape and desired thickness. If you leave the dough too thick you will end up with a deep pan style pizza as the crust will puff up in the oven. I take it down to about 3mm thick and find this gives me the best results.

If the dough springs back when you start to stretch it out, leave it rest for 5 minutes and then start again.

Don’t worry about trying to create a “lip” around the edge of your pizza as this will happen naturally. When you drop your pizza in the oven the dough will spring up, but the weight of the ingredients in the middle will help a natural lip to form.

When your happy with the rough shape of the pizza crust, place it on the baking paper and finish stretching it out with your hands ready to top.

I’m sure people could go on for hours about their favourite pizza toppings so I will leave this up to you. Personally I am a big fan of the traditional Margherita Pizza.

First spoon some of your tomato sauce over the base, then place on some thin slices of mozzarella and grate over a little parmesan cheese (helps give a little more flavour).

Add whatever other meats/vegetables you want being careful not to overload your pizza. Less is more – you want to be able to taste your pizza base and not just cop a mouth full of tandoori chicken (yes I have issues with “Gourmet” pizza that I’m working through separately).

Finally, drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the top and your ready to pop it in the oven (see note above about getting your pizza into the oven).

I find my pizzas cook perfectly in about 8 minutes. The dough is baked through but still fluffy and the cheese has melted.

I finish my pizza with some fresh basil leaves and wash it down with a good bottle of red and a garden salad.

The dough recipe above will keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. What I do is always keep a little bit of left over dough and “refresh” it by mixing it in with the new batch. This helps keep the flavour maturing.

When you’re ready to make a new batch, cut the left over dough into small chunks and mix it in with the flour, salt and yeast. Add the water and stir to mix.

I keep using the same bowel and have not had the need to clean it out in between batches.

You can use this same dough recipe to make all other sorts of breads, think outside the square beyond the humble pizza!