Homemade Pizza From The Bottom Up

Photo: Carla

Ingredients

7 cups strong white bread flour or Tipo "00" flour or 5 cups st

1 tablespoon level fine sea salt

2 (1/4-ounce) packets active dried yeast

1 tablespoon raw sugar

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

Toppings

cup Colavita Garden Style Sauce

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 ounces cooked italian sausage, casing removed

4 ounces cooked chorizo, casing removed

1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach

cup button mushrooms, sliced

20 slices pepperoni

1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

Preparation

Sift the flours and salt onto a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring cup, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough.

Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Now remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands – this is called punching down the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the fridge (or freezer) until required. If using straightaway, divide the dough up into as many little balls as you want to make pizzas – this amount of dough is enough to make about six to eight medium pizzas.

Timing-wise, it's a good idea to roll the pizzas out about 15 to 20 minutes before you want to cook them. Don't roll them out and leave them hanging around for a few hours, though – if you are working in advance like this it's better to leave your dough, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator. However, if you want to get them rolled out so there's 1 less thing to do when your guests are round, simply roll the dough out into rough circles, about ¼-inch thick, and place them on slightly larger pieces of olive-oil-rubbed and flour-dusted aluminum foil. You can then stack the pizzas, cover them with plastic wrap

Assemble your toppings onto the dough and bake for 10 - 15 minutes, in a 450 degree preheated oven.

This recipe was cut in half to make two large pizzas.