A question about flour and piazza dough!

[Thankyouandgoodnight]

I'm about to make the nigella version of pizza dough and it says 'plain flour (italian 00)' - is that normal plain flour or strong bread flour??

plain

Italian 00 is neither - it's very finely milled but high in gluten. You can buy it here as pasta flour. It ought to work fine for pizza dough but it's expensive. If you don't have it you want to use the strong bread flour.

lovely - ta!

oh and one more question - i know i need to leave the dough for an hour or so to double in size etc. can I leave it for 4-5 hours?? What's the max i can get away with do you think?

You can leave it as long as you like, but the longer you leave it for the colder place you need to leave it in. In fact, the slower you do it the better the flavour.

I sometimes do mine overnight, or for the whole day, in the fridge, so I would guess 4-5 hours needs to be somewhere coolish but not fridge-cold.

We use pasta flour for ours now and it's much less heavy and doughy than with white bread flour.

What's the outcome if you leave it for longer in a warm place rather than a cooler one?

It over-rises - grows massive and scary and full of air. It can end up tasting slightly yeasty and fermented if that happens. But it would still be fine to eat.

ooooh

thanks for your help!

I now have too much dough (well will do when it's done it's 'thing'. Can i freeze any of it down??

Yes, you can freeze it

How cool is that! In oiled bags?
Do I have to do anything specific with it after thawing and before cooking?

Apologies for piggyback on your thread, goodnight -

when you unfreeze the dough to use, what do you do? Just defrost and roll out?

Yes in oiled LABELLED bags if you are as rubbish as I am at remembering what you put in the freezer

I don't think you have to do anything specific - just use it as normal.