Basic Pizza Dough

Now there is probably no other word that can be a synonym for "Italian Cuisine".......PIZZA! Who doesn't know about Pizza & who doesn't like Pizzas! And what a great joy you will experience if you know how to make these perfectly at home. If you asked me a decade back, would you try making a pizza at home, I would have said..."Crazy or what!!...Its a fast food dish, best eaten at Pizza Hut or a Dominoes! It is not & cannot be made at home & it won't be as delicious as you get in one of the fast food joints". But when I saw for the first time how my mom-in-law made some delicious pizzas at home with her own luscious toppings, I was spellbound. I slowly started to have a liking towards home baking.

It was when I visited Italy, that I found the true taste & look of the authentic pizzas. My previous notions were all wrong. I got a whole different picture of this beautiful dish called PIZZA! An authentic Italian pizza dough is smooth as butter, the baked crust is super thin & the toppings are so authentic, originated from different regions of Italy.

After a sincere research on Pizzas, I found the authentic Italian Pizza dough recipe and it came out super soft & fluffy. At the end of the day, I was a happy girl. :)

Ingredients:

• 40 gm compressed fresh yeast (or) 2 sachets of easy blend dried yeast
• 125 ml of lukewarm water
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 400 gm flour (plus extra for dusting)
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Method:

1. Crumble the yeast into a small bowl & sprinkle with the sugar. Add the lukewarm water, then stir to dissolve the yeast and sugar.
2. Cover it with a clean towel & prove in a warm place for 30 minutes. You will find the yeast would have become frothy & released its odour.
3. Sift the flour into a large bowl. Make a hollow in the centre & pour the yeast mixture, salt, olive oil & 5 tbsp of water into it.
4. Knead everything into a smooth, silky dough, then shape it into a big ball. Dust the ball with little flour & cover & set aside in a warm place to rise for an hour until the dough has doubled its size.
5. Your pizza dough is ready to be used. Ta da!!

Please wait for my next post to get the authentic Italian recipe of one of the most popular Pizzas....Pizza Alla Napoletana otherwise known as "Pizza Romano". :)