Please give me your foolproof pizza base recipes.

[chaostrulyreigns]

Got 12 urchins coming to watch the futility football match after school tomorrow!

I need to impress as one of the chaosurchins dobbed to one of her friend's dads that I buy pizzas ready made.

Now he has laid down the gauntlet.

I haven't made pizza base properly since my Home Ec 'O' Level.

Please advise!

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/perfectpizzadough_72456 I use that one and it freezes really well as well.

The last couple of times I made pizza base I used HFW's recipe which is slightly diff to norm and worked very well.

HFW Pizza Base

250g plain flour
250g strong white flour
10g fine sea salt
5g fast action yeast
2 tbsp olive oil

Mix all that dry ingredients together and then add oil and pour in 325ml warm water.

Mix it, knead it, leave it to rise. Should make 4-5 pizzas

Thanks - I may do a compare and contrast on the 2 methods tomorrow as so many mouths to feed!

Will report back.

You could use sainsbury's pizza dough mix;it's very good and obviously would look the same as if you had weighed out the ingredients yourself it's pretty cheap too.

To save your poor hands use the dough hooks on a mixer; it really does a good job especially if you're catering for quite a few people.

Personally I just use 1lb of strong white bread flour, 2 sachets of dried yeast and a good pinch of salt. Add enough hand hot water to make a soft dough and mix for about 5 mins.This makes enough for 2 thin based 12" pizzas,(obviously you might need to double the quantities.) At this point you can use it straight away or leave in the fridge for up to 24 hrs covered with oiled film.

HTH

Mine is an old Delia recipe. For a typical 12" pizza plate...

8oz strong bread flour
1 sachet easy blend dried yeast
1 egg, beaten
teaspoon of salt
a glug of oil
Italian Herbs (optional)
enough water to mix to a soft dough

Knead that until you get bored and then roll it out really thinly and use to line the pizza plate. Pinch it up all around the edge and brush with a little more oil before adding toppings.

TIP 1... add toppings sparingly. Too much and your base will be heavy.

TIP 2... leave your pizza to one side for 20 - 30 mins while the oven gets hot. Gives the base chance to rise.

Cook in a really hot oven for 15-20 mins.

Do you have a breadmaker? I make up half quantities of this in mine on the Dough setting, although with slightly less water. When the machine has worked its magic, I remove the dough, do the knocking back thing and refrigerate it (wrapped in oiled clingfilm) unitl I need it. The dough is way easier to work with if you refrigerate it, ime.

8oz strong flour
half tsp dried yeast
half tsp salt
300ml warm water
1 tbsp olive oil

Mix dry ingredients, add water and oil, mix to a sticky dough, then knead for about 10 minutes until it goes springy, smooth and elastic. Leave it to rise for about an hour, then knock it back, cut it in half and roll out to make two bases. Add toppings and bake at gas mark 7 until they are obviously cooked.

I made these last night and DP said they should be rechristened as they were so far above mere ordinary pizzas That amount of dough does only make two greedy adult size pizzas though, so make as much as is necessary.

I use the followingi bread recipie. It's so simple and successful we.ve stopped buying bread. A third of this makes one pizza the size of a baking tray. When stretching the dough sprinkle polenta on the surface first...v professional! Have oven and baking tray hot as can be. Stretch dough out thin as poss by man handling (technical term) then get tray out, chuck dough on it, chuck toppings on (have then ready to go), in oven. Only takes a few minutes.

1 kg bread flour
1 sachet yeast
2 tea spoons salt
600ml warm water

Mix and knead for five mins. I knowit's very simple, but you won't believe how well it works. It's from the river cottage bread book.

Gawd so many recipes so little time.

Can't believe how different the proportions are in some of these.

for one baking tray I use

250g flour (all purpose is fine)
50 ml olive oil
100 ml warm water
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon dried active yeast (or half a sachet quick yeast)

mix all together and let stand for a while, until about double the size (20 min or so)

roll out thinly on baking tray, spread with tomato puree (twice concentrated) and put on topping of your choice.