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. If you can find semolina flour it gives the dough an authentic flavour and texture, but if not don’t worry, just use 1kg of strong white bread flour.

makes 8 to 10

Ingredients

• • 800g strong white bread flour
• • 200g fine ground semolina flour or strong white bread flour
• • 1 level tablespoon fine sea salt
• • 2 x 7g sachets of dried yeast
• • 1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
• • around 650ml lukewarm water

To make your dough

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• Pile the flours and salt on to a clean surface and
• Make an 18cm well in the centre
• Add your yeast and sugar to the tepid water, mix up with a fork and leave for a few minutes

To make your dough

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• Pour the yeast mixture into the well
• Using a fork and a circular movement, slowly bring in the flour from the inner edge of the well and mix into the water
• It will look like stodgy porridge – continue to mix, bringing in all the flour

To make your dough

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• When the dough comes together and becomes too hard to mix with your fork, flour your hands and begin to pat it into a ball

To knead and prove your dough

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• Knead the dough by rolling it backwards and forwards, using one hand to stretch the dough towards you and the other hand to push the dough away from you at the same time
• Repeat this for 10 minutes until you have a smooth springy soft dough

To knead and prove your dough

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• Flour the top of your dough, cover it with clingfilm and let it rest for at least 15 minutes at room temperature – this will make it easier to roll it thinly
• Now divide the dough into as many balls as you want to make pizzas, i.e. lots of small ones or a few larger ones, but I suggest that 6 is a good quantity for this amount of dough

To roll out your dough

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• Timing-wise it’s nice to roll the pizzas out 15 to 30 minutes before you start to cook them – if you want to work more in advance, it’s better to keep the dough in clingfilm in the fridge rather than having rolled-out pizzas hanging around for a few hours
• Take a piece of the dough, dust your surface and the dough with a little flour or semolina, and roll it out into a rough circle about 0.5cm thick
• Tear off an appropriately sized piece of tin foil, rub it with olive oil, dust it well with flour or semolina and place the pizza base on top

To roll out your dough

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• 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

To cook your pizza

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• When you’re ready to cook them, preheat your oven to 250ΊC/500ΊF/gas 9
• At this stage you can apply your toppings (see Pizza margherita with different toppings for some ideas) – remember: less is more
• If you can, cook the pizzas on a piece of granite in your conventional oven – if not, do them one by one on pieces of tin foil directly on the bars of the oven shelf, towards the bottom of the oven (If you’re going to cook your pizzas on the bars of the oven, make sure they’re not too big – otherwise they’ll be difficult to manoeuvre)
• Cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until the pizzas are golden and crispy