pizza epiphanies
i’ve been feeling a little grumpy recently.
it’s all down to my pizza base. having spent a long time looking for a reliable and delicious recipe it has started to fail me. it’s not that it doesn’t work (although i did have a bad experience when the dough barely rose at all - old yeast i guess), it’s more that it doesn’t excite me any more. and pizza should be exciting – don’t you think?
still, help was at hand courtesy of kevin from seriously good, who shares with us a fabulous story about cooking pizza for his family and seeing his father experience, for the first time, good, homemade pizza. these sorts of epiphanies really make cooking for friends and family worthwhile.
so, if the pizza had such a profound effect on kevin’s father, i decided i should try the base that was responsible.
it was fabulous! as kevin says, his dough is full of flavour and pays homage to its bready origins. this is a pizza dough that i will be revisiting – and if you fancy a change, you should try it too.
kevin’s pizza dough (makes 2 bases, c25 cm each - serves 4*)
2 tablespoons honey
2 ½ teaspoons dried yeast
240ml warm water
60ml olive oil
500g plain flour
salt
combine the honey, yeast and water and leave somewhere warm until it becomes frothy (10-15 minutes). stir in the oil.
mix the flour with a pinch of salt in a large bowl. make a well in the middle and pour in the water/oil mix. mix together to form a soft dough. remove the dough from the bowl and place on a floured surface. knead for c10 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth and supple. you may need to add extra flour if the dough is too sticky.
lightly oil a clean mixing bowl, place the dough in it and cover with a clean tea towel. leave in a warm place, for about an hour, to rise. punch the dough down, return it to the bowl and leave to rise until it doubles in volume (c1 hour).
split the dough in half and using each ball of dough in turn, roll it out to the same size as your pizza stone and assemble your pizza.
the pizza pictured has a tomato sauce topped with wilted spinach, artichokes, red peppers, basil and mozzarella.
* we normally have two pizzas between us but this base is much heavier than my previous pizza dough recipe so i suggest you have 1 base between two. you can make a full quantity of dough, roll out and freeze the second base for a busy day.