Caterbox Pizza Dough Container

Tasty pizza base recipe

Instead of using a Big or Sourdough starter, this recipe for pizza base uses the traditional French “pate fermentee” system to give your dough more complexity without the need for super-extended fermentation periods at room temperature and in the fridge. Our recipe gives you the flexibility to make dough on the day you want to make the pizza but still delivers bags of flavour in the base so you can go easy on the toppings and get that real Neapolitan crust. Once made it will keep in the fridge for two days so no problem if you change your mind. This dough is designed for cooking on the stone rather than with a baking sheet and will work best in an oven capable of over 300 Celsius. Your first mix will just be a standard base mix. It won’t be as good as this but you can make a small batch for a couple of garlic breads & then make this base dough 3 days later.

Equipment

Big bowl
Ideally see-through and not too big to go in the fridge.

Electronic scales
Ideally from 1g to 3kg in1g increments or smaller.

Measuring jug
1 Litre is ideal.

Wooden spoon for mixing.
(Optional if you prefer to use your hands) Plastic Bowl scraper. Best ones have one flat side for cutting & scraping and a curved side for scraping the bowl.

Ingredients

150g of leftover dough from the first batch

850g Pizza flour. I use Caputo or the Italian pizza flour from Booths.

15g fine table salt.

7g active dried yeast.

600ml warm water (plus another 100ml just in case)

Olive oil for kneading.

Method

Measure the flour, salt and yeast into a large bowl. Chop the reserved dough into pieces about 1-2cm cubed and mix in to the flour. Make a well in the centre and add 400ml of the water. Mix slowly and add more water as required to achieve a soft pliable dough. Turn the dough out and knead it for a minute to make sure that all the old dough is well incorporated, then return to the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave at room temperature for 3 hours. Turn out of the bowl onto a little olive oil and knead briefly, then divide into 200g portions and knead into balls. If you have a proving box, put them in there and refrigerate for 3-4 hours. This will help strengthen the dough for stretching and let the flavour develop. If you don’t have a proving box, cover a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and put the balls on it covered with clingfilm to prevent drying out. You can now make your dough into pizzas but keep one ball back and put it back in the fridge , well covered, to use in your next batches of pizza dough. For the next batch use 5g of dried yeast and the dough ball from the fridge to make the new dough.

Copyright. Simon ML Thomas 29/09/2021. All rights reserved.