Jamie’s Tip - Pizza is probably one of the most famous dishes in the whole world. This is a really simple method for making your own pizza dough. Semolina flour gives the dough an authentic flavour and texture so use it if you can, but don’t worry if you don’t have any – simply use all strong white bread flour.
Prep
25 min
Cook
10 min
Serves
4
Difficulty
Easy
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Ingredients
fast action dried yeast 15 g
caster sugar 15 g
strong white bread flour 800 g
semolina flour 200 g
salt 1 tsp
olive oil 1 tbsp
Method
Make the dough
Pour 650ml lukewarm water into a measuring jug. Stir in the fast action dried yeast and caster sugar, then leave for a few minutes until the surface starts to bubble and foam.
Meanwhile, pile the strong white bread flour, semolina flour and salt onto a clean work surface or into a large bowl, and make a well in the centre with your hands.
Slowly pour the yeastmixture into the well, using a fork to gradually draw the flour in from the outside edges.
Once you’re finding it hard to mix, use your hands to pat and pull it into a soft, sticky dough, adding a splash of water to bring it together, if needed.
Knead the dough pushing, folding and pulling it with your hands, for about 5 minutes until it’s silky and elastic – if any of the dough sticks to your hands, just rub them together with a little extra flour.
Lightly flour the top of the dough, make it into a roundish shape and let it rest for at least 15 minutes at room temperature – this will make it easier to roll it thinly.
Shape the dough
Use a knife to cut the dough into as many pieces as you want to make pizzas, i.e. lots of small ones or a few larger ones – ten is a good quantity for this amount of dough.
You can keep your dough wrapped in clingfilm in the fridge or even the freezer to use later.
Take a piece of the dough, dust the surface and the dough with a little flour or semolina flour, and use a rolling pin to roll it out into a rough circle around 1⁄2cm thick.
Tear off an appropriately-sized piece of tin foil, rub lightly with olive oil . Dust well with flour or semolina and place the pizza base on top.
Continue doing the same with the other pieces and then, if you dust them with a little flour, you can pile them up into a stack, cover them with clingfilm and put them in the fridge until needed.
Bake
When you're ready to cook, preheat the oven to 250°C/500°F/gas 9.
Add your toppings, remembering that less is more – an overloaded base will go soggy.
Bake for 7 to 10 minutes, or until the pizzas are golden and crispy.
