Pizza: Part 1 - Dough

We have pizza night in this house probably a bit too often - but we usually start cooking this once the boy had gone to sleep so he tends to miss out! I thought this time I'd save a bit of dough over and make the boy some mini pizzas for the boy and top up the freezer stash at the same time!

Dough recipe

We like to follow a BBC Good Food recipe as its really easy and the dough always turns out really good! But make a few tweaks...

Ingredients

500g plain flour (with extra for dusting)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp dried yeast (we use Allinson Easy Bake Yeast)

400ml warm water

Place flour, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix together. 

Add yeast to warm water and stir thoroughly. 

Make a well in the middle of the flour and add 1/3 of the warm water solution. Mix together with hands, kneading slowly adding more water as needed. You may not need to use all of the water and you can add more flour if the mix is too wet. Knead for a few minute each time you add any water. You will know it's the right consistency when the dough just stops sticking to your hands.

Once you have your dough ready, place it into another mixing bowl which has been sparingly greased with olive oil and cover with a clean tea towel. Leave somewhere warm (e.g. An airing cupboard or near a radiator) for around an hour. 

Then dust a clean, dry surface and rolling pin with flour. Separate the dough into even portions (depending on the size and amounts you are planning on making). A fist sized piece of dough would roll out to be around a 9 inch pizza, but this will vary on how thick you want your base and crust. 

Once you have rolled your pizza dough into flat shapes, you can start to add the toppings of your choice.

See my Pizza Toppings recipe for more inspiration!