Pizza Crust (Improved)

Pizza 

This pizza dough will yield a pizza crust that is crispy on the outside and soft inside. As the amount of liquid is high, it is best made using a stand mixer with a dough hook. Of course you can knead by hand too.

Ingredients:

500g bread flour

10g semolina flour

1 tsp yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

15g olive oil

1 tsp salt

340g water (room temperature)

1. In the mixing bowl, combine the bread flour and semolina flour, add the salt on one side of the bowl and yeast and sugar on the other side. Pour water and olive oil into the bowl and start to knead on slow speed until the dough comes together. Then increase the mixer speed to medium and knead until the dough comes away cleanly from the sides of the mixing bowl.

2. Turn the dough onto the table. Use the scrapper to quickly gather the dough together, then work the dough by stretching and folding a few times to trap as much air as possible inside the dough. Use the dough scrapper to gather the dough into a ball.  Lightly oil the mixing bowl and place the dough ball into the mixing bowl, cover the bowl with a plastic/cloth and let the dough rest for 45minutes or until double in size. For better crust and flavor, rest the dough in the fridge and leave it overnight (or up to 48 hours - bring the dough to room temperature before using it). 

3. Mix a tablespoon of bread flour with a tablespoon of semolina flour. Turn the dough (weight, around 830g) onto the table. Divide into 4 (around 200g each), roll into a ball and lightly coat each ball with bread and semolina flour mixture. Cover the dough balls with cloth/plastic and rest the dough balls for up to 1 hour (or overnight in fridge - bring the dough to room temperature before using it). 

4. Preheat oven to 230 deg celcius (or as high as it will go).

5. Lightly dust the baking tray with bread and semolina flour mixture, and place one dough ball on it. Shape the dough by using your fingers to push/stretch the dough from the center towards the rim until you have a rough circle of about 20cm in diameter with a 1 cm rim.

6. Drizzle a little olive oil over the pizza and spread one tablespoon of tomato sauce evenly over the pizza. Bake the pizza for 5 minutes. Remove the pizza from the oven and add toppings. Then continue to bake the pizza until the edges become golden brown and crispy.