Pizza

When you have growing kids, you tend to cook something that they will eat more.   Pizza is one on the list that I don't have to urge them to eat more.  3rd or 4th helpings happened when I served pizza.

So I am constantly looking out for easy to make pizza recipe.  

Thus today I am going to try ieatishootipost's.   This recipe takes 2 days in preparation, something that I won't do often as I like more impromptu activities but looking at how easy he demonstrated on his video, I was sold.

If you asked me whether this dough is as easy as my other attempts.  I think it is more or less the same.  In fact, this is not those crispy type if that is what you are looking for.  A little chewy I must say.

As I served it for a party, I didn't have a chance to eat it piping hot.  

The next round, I will go for straight 600g of plain flour to have a better review for this recipe.

Overall, since it is a pizza, my kids still love it.

Learning experience: Not crispy type and a little chewy.   I also forgot to add that 1 tbsp sugar and thus my crust was not golden brown.

I can't figure out whether it actually needed three days to prepare this pizza.  Day 1, getting the dough together, Day 2, balling the dough and Day 3, baking the pizza?

As the instruction was really clear to me, I based on my bread making experience to complete the dough.

What you need:

300g plain flour
300g bread flour
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar  (optional - helps the crust to brown)
360ml water
1/4 tsp yeast (increase to 1 tsp yeast if you are not resting the dough overnight)

Method:

Place all the ingredients in a bowl

Create a well in the middle and add the water

Mix all the ingredients together until it is a rough ball (Just combined)

Cover with a damp cloth and wait 20 min (allows the flour to absorb water properly)

After 20 mins take out and knead for about 5 mins by hand or kitchen mixer (low speed - kneading hook).  You can also use a food processor to process the dough for 1 min.  The kneading part is not critical if you are leaving the dough in the fridge for two days as the long fermentation will encourage gluten formation.  Some people don't even knead the dough if they are doing a long ferment (Check out Jim Lahey's no knead bread recipe).

Now leave the dough in the fridge overnight in a lightly oiled container.

The next day it should have risen.

Now you can divide the dough into four pieces and ball it.  

Start balling it one day before you plan to make the pizza.  

After you ball it, it takes around one day in the fridge for it to rise nicely. If you ball it too early the dough can rise too much.  You can even ball it 3 hours before you plan to bake the pizza.  

It takes around that time for the dough to rise depending on temperature and humidity. 3 hours is quite safe for Singapore's weather condition.  (I rested the dough for 3 hours and proceed to make the pizza after)