Any Flour Pizza Dough

I think you would be hard pushed to find any person who does not like Pizza.  So many different types of topping can be added, which makes it an ideal way of using up food from the night before or wilted spinach for example.You will see Pizza popping up throughout the book, and out of the many dough recipes I have tried, this is the most foolproof. Any flour can be used, you may need to add more water when kneading if you are using spelt or whole wheat flours.  

This recipe makes 1 large pizza quite thick or 2 medium pizza’s nice and thin crust.

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Any Flour Pizza Dough

You will need:
Clean hands
Mixing bowl/Electric mixer with a dough hook
Clean, damp tea towel 
Greased or lined oven tray or pizza stone 
Small ceramic or glass bowl for yeast mixture

Ingredients

Serving Size:
1 large pizza, quite thick, or 2 medium pizzas with a nice thin crust

1 tbs dried yeast

1 tbs sugar – any sugar will do,
or runny honey

1 cup warm water

3 cups flour (I’ve used stoneground white spelt)

1 tsp salt

1 tbs oil 

Method

Preheat the oven to fan bake 220°C

Put yeast, sugar and water in a small bowl and set aside for 15 minutes until frothy.

Sift the flour into a bowl with salt, then add oil to the yeast mix and pour it into the sifted flour.

I use an electric mixer with a dough hook, but you can knead it on a floured surface for about 5 minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic. 

Add a little extra flour if it is too wet.

Place into a clean glass or ceramic bowl that has been oiled (use olive oil if you can, for the best taste).

Cover with a clean, damp tea towel and place somewhere warm to rise.

When it has doubled in size, take it out of the bowl. 

‘Ball’ the dough with your hands on a floured surface then roll it out with a rolling pin (or a wine bottle!).

When it’s the size you want (it doesn’t have to be round),
put it on a baking dish or tray lined with baking paper, or
a pizza stone.

The reason I use a baking tray, lined with baking paper,
is that when it is cooked it is easy to slip the paper off
with the pizza on it onto a chopping board, and put the hot tray aside.