How do you make pizza bases?

[TheBear]

Netix - correct, the sugar and salt are the improvers in this recipe.

It shouldn't rise much beyond the initial 5mm where it is covered in topping, but might bubble up a bit round the edge if your oven is really hot.

The key thing with the kneading is to stretch the fibers in the dough as much as possible, the more you work the dough, the more they will develop, and the better the finished product will be.

To use the recipe for bread, simply let it prove a second time in a loaf tin, then bake.

The last bread flour I bought was a 5kg bag of "Delifrance" Bread flour from Woollies.

Bread flour is a high-gluten flour that has very small amounts of malted barley flour and vitamin C or potassium bromate added. The barley flour helps the yeast work, and the other additive increases the elasticity of the gluten and its ability to retain gas as the dough rises and bakes. Bread flour is called for in many bread and pizza crust recipes where you want the loftiness or chewiness that the extra gluten provides. It is especially useful as a component in rye, barley and other mixed-grain breads, where the added lift of the bread flour is necessary to boost the other grains.

All-purpose flour is made from a blend of high- and low-gluten wheats, and has a bit less protein than bread flour — 11% or 12% vs. 13% or 14%. You can always substitute all-purpose flour for bread flour, although your results may not be as glorious as you had hoped. There are many recipes, however, where the use of bread flour in place of all-purpose will produce a tough, chewy, disappointing result. Cakes, for instance, are often made with all-purpose flour, but would not be nearly as good made with bread flour.

The point of the paving stone is to get as much heat into the base of the pizza as possible - commercial pizza ovens run at around 400 degrees, so as much heat as you can muster is a good thing. Let the pizza stone get really hot before putting the pizza on it and the dough will sizzle and bubble, producing an authentic crispy, light crust.