Pizza Dough

I've never considered making my own pizza until recently, I always thought why bother with all that work when picking up the phone to order is much easier! Luckily my friend Skye encouraged me and gave me a great Jamie Oliver pizza dough recipe to try and then when my other friend Nyree said she also uses the same recipe, I decided to go for it.

1kg strong white bread flour or Tipo '00' flour
1 level tablespoon fine sea salt
2 x 7g sachets of dried yeast
1 tablespoon caster sugar (JO uses golden caster sugar but I used regular)
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
650mls lukewarm water

Sieve the flour and salt onto a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl into the liquid. Keep mixing and drawing larger amounts of flour in until the dough starts to come together. Work the rest of the flour in and start kneading until the dough is smooth and springy.

I actually used my KitchenAid mixer with the dough hook to start off with, by combining the yeast, sugar, oil and water in the mixer bowl and then adding the flour & salt gradually while on mixing level 2. Once the dough has formed and pulled away from the sides of the bowl, tip out onto a floured surface to knead briefly.

Place the dough into a floured bowl and cover with a damp cloth, place in a warm room to double in size over an hour (or however long it takes). As the weather is cooler here, I placed it on the stove and heated the oven to assist. Once risen, remove the dough from the bowl and knead it around a bit to push the air out which is called "knocking" back the dough. You can use immediately or wrap in clingfilm (aka gladwrap) in the fridge or freezer till required.

The dough makes 6-8 medium pizzas so halve the recipe if you don't intend of making that many! You can roll out the dough 15-20 minutes prior to using, just ensure you flour the bench enough so they don't stick. If you want to roll them out and store in the fridge, then place them on squares of tinfoil rubbed with olive oil and then dusted with flour and stack in fridge. Bake on a pizza stone (absolute must) and I cranked my oven up to the highest temperature and then just kept an eye on the pizza until it looked cooked. I suggest you do this and after the first time you'll know how long to cook them for in the future.

Result - Goodbye local pizza shop and hello homemade pizza!! I am officially converted! In all honesty, this was the best pizza I have had since my trip to Italy for my honeymoon, delicious with a capital D! I highly recommend following Skye's additional tip of sprinkling freshly chopped or crushed garlic over the pizza base before the sauce as the garlic adds a fantastic flavour to the entire pizza. We have already had pizza for lunch again today and my husband watched so he can make his own tomorrow while Evan and I are out! Definitely a meal that the whole family can participate in which is fun.

Source - Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver (unofficially the fabulous Skye!)