The Aussie Travel Guy Pizza Recipe

For years now, I’ve been making pizza from scratch (well, close enough) and over the years, I’ve started to perfect it.

This afternoon, I set about making some pizza bases and decided it was high time I blogged about how I put together a pizza or two. 

The Recipe: Pizza Base

Ingredients

4 1/2 cups of flour, chilled*
1 3/4 teaspoons of salt**
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon of yeast
1 3/4 cups of ice cold water

* For best results, refrigerate overnight, or for more instant results cover and place in a freezer for 5-10 minutes before use
** I like to use sea salt which has been crushed, but regular table salt is fine 

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and yeast, then mix well.
2. Once mixed, then pour in the oil and half of the water, stirring to combine with the dry mixture

   

   

   

3. Keep mixing and add the rest of the water so that the mixture is well distributed
4. The flour will bind and become very tacky.  If using hands, keep a bowl of ice cold water handy to rinse your hands as you mix

   

   

5. Keep mixing until the mixture starts to bind and collects less loose flour
6. Sprinkle a layer of flour onto a good flat surface like a bench top and extract the mixture from the bowl

   

7. Start kneading the dough into the flour, continually working the dough inside to out, picking up flour as you go
8. The dough should start to become less tacky
9. Keep repeating this kneading over and over again until the dough is smooth and absorbs almost no new flour from the bench
10. Once the dough loses it’s stickiness, roll into a ball

    

    

11. Take a bowl and grease it lightly with olive oil
12. Put the dough into the bowl and cover with cling wrap (saran wrap)
13. Place the bowl someplace warm for 40 minutes to let the dough rise slightly

    

Part 2: toppings and final prep

1. Start preparing your toppings!

   

   

2. Once 40 minutes has elapsed, remove dough from bowl and knead out a final time.  The dough may “sigh” slightly as the air escapes

3. Preheat your oven at 180’C/350’F (fan forced) or 200’C/390’F (conventional)

4. Even out the base over a greased pizza tray (or whatever you have)

   

   

5. Apply pizza base to the pizza with the reverse side of a soup spoon (great consistency)
6. Add cheese and toppings.  I put meat first, then accompaniments like mushroom, capsicum and sun dried tomatoes.  

   

   

7. Insert into oven and set a timer for 10 minutes
8. After 10 minutes check on the pizza and extend for a further 10 minutes or until fully cooked
9. Once ready, remove from oven and cut into slices

Serving the Pizza

In pictures!  I use ‘pizza scissors’ instead of the traditional pizza cutter as it doesn’t disturb the topping half as much.