Wood fired pizza
Dough Balls
Be gentle with your
dough and shape
carefully for the best
possible results.
Back to the dough – the
vital second prove
S E E +
S H O P
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you need in store and at
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Store-cupboard
tomato sauce
Ingredients
500g (2¼ cups) passata
1 clove of garlic, crushed
A pinch of dried oregano
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp granulated sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Put everything into a small heavy-
based saucepan and bring to the boil on
the hob.
Turn the heat down to a steady simmer
and allow to putter away for a good 20
minutes, until thick and rich.
Tip into a bowl and set aside to cool
completely before using on your
pizzas.
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A good hour before you want to cook your
pizza, you need to shape the dough into
balls, which I do just before lighting my fire.
I know it takes a generous hour for my fire
to come up to super-hot pizza temperature,
conveniently about the same time the
dough needs for a second prove.
Your oven may take less or longer to heat,
so adjust your timings accordingly.
Uncover the bowl of dough. Shake plenty
of flour over the worktop, a little over your
hands and over a sharp knife or dough
cutter. Also shake plenty of flour over two
large baking sheets and have these handy
to put the balls of dough on.
Ease the dough from the bowl on to the
worktop using floured hands, taking care
not to knock out all the bubbles – you just
want to slide it out so the top still stays on
the top. Gently pat it into an oblong and
cut it in half, then pat each half back into
an oblong again and cut those in half. Do
this once more with each piece so you are
left with 8 evenly sized pieces, all the time
being gentle with the dough and patting it
into shape rather than kneading, pulling or
turning over.
Take a piece of dough and cup it between
floured palms, rotating and gently pulling
downwards as you turn the ball, teasing the
edges underneath to give you a compact,
tight ball shape with no folds or lines.
Sprinkle a little flour over the ball and set
on the floured baking sheet, then continue
with the other 7 pieces of dough, spreading
them out over two sheets so they don’t stick
together as they rise.
Set the dough balls to one side to prove
for an hour or so while you fire up your
oven. If you want to get ahead of the game,
put the trays into the fridge, where they will
sit happily for a few hours (but will take up
quite a bit of room). If you refrigerate your
dough balls, you need to take them out
for 45 minutes or so to allow them to come
up to room temperature before you try to
stretch them out into pizzas. Cold dough
doesn’t behave very well, it is not very
elastic and will have a tendency to spring
back rather than stretch out.