Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough Recipe

Marnus Swart having fun rolling his pizza base.

For our 'pizza evenings' my husband is the designated chef, cooking the pizzas to perfection in his Weber/Kettle-braai.
We use Jamie Oliver's pizza base, with one difference, the Semolina flour has been replaced with extra bread flour.



Basic Pizza Dough:

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 

Method:
• 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 
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Flour the top of your dough, cover it with cling-film 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, allow to rise and roll out.
• Put toppings on just before baking.

Tip: Have a very hot Weber/Kettle-braai and the toppings should not be too wet or too heavy.

My husband Duncan sporting the 'blackened' oven gloves.