Spicy Olive and Mozzarella Pizza Recipe!

-Pizza Dough-

• Pile the flours and salt on to a clean surface and make an 18cm/7 inch well in the centre.

• Add your yeast and sugar to the tepid water, mix up with a fork and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well.

• Use a fork to mix in 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 your left hand to stretch the dough towards you and your right 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. I’d say about 6 fist-sized balls would be the right number for this amount of dough.

Timing-wise it’s nice to roll the pizzas out 15 to 30 minutes before you start to cook them. If you want to work further in advance then you can keep the dough in cling film in the fridge rather than having rolled-out pizzas hanging around for a few hours. To get them ready for this, take a piece of the dough, dust your surface and the dough with a little flour or semolina, and roll it out into a rough circle about 0.5cm thick. Tear off an appropriately sized piece of tinfoil, rub it with olive oil, dust it well with flour or semolina and place the pizza base on top. Continue doing the same with the other pieces and then, if you dust them with a little flour, you can pile them up into a stack, cover them with cling film and put them in the fridge.



-Topping-

• Preheat your oven to its highest setting. Top each of your pizza bases with one nice big tablespoon of spicy olive, garlic and tomato pasta sauce. Tear your buffalo mozzarella into chunks and sprinkle these over each of your pizzas with a little oregano.

• Finish with a drizzle of olive oil then put your pizzas straight on to the bars of the oven to bake for 7 to 10 minutes, or until the base is nice and crispy and the mozzarella is all melted and gooey.

ENJOY!