Otay... Pizza dough recipe:
required:
Deep mixing bowl (or a pro blender with a dough hook to save you a lot of trouble... but thats most likely a longshot)
measuring cup to at least 2 cups
water
yeast
sugar
salt
olive oil
bread flour (not the normal stuff... you need true machine grade bread flour)
mixing spoon
teaspoon
tablespoon
bread board or super clean largish counter space
optional:
spices
water thermometer
moist heavy kitchen towel
Start out by getting the flour into the bowl. The amount you wish depends upon how big of a pie or how many pies you wish to make. A simple large pizza shop pie would be a 2 cup base. We will use that amount for our example.
Add to the flour a decent pinch of salt 1/4 to 1/3 teaspoon.
Then add your desired optional dry spices ...oregano, basil, garlic, dry mustard... whatever. Dry mix it until it is evenly distributed. Set it aside and start to go to work on the yeast water.
Your basic ratio of water to flour can be a little tricky. The best results come from a 1/3 to 1 ratio plus a tablespoon per cup of flour... that is to say for our given mixture of 2 cups flour: 2/3 of a cup of water plus two tablespoons. You can adjust the additional bit of water when you get a feel for how absorbant your particular maker of bread flour is or isnt.
The water needs to be in a specific range to make the yeast do its business to full effect. We barbaric countries call that range 100-110 Farenheit. Other countries will call it 38-42 Celsius. If you have a water thermometer... bravo... victory comes easy. If not... guess with a little finger dip and put a water thermometer on the 'ol wish list. I suggest using cold drawn water from the tap unless you have bottled. Heat it up either using a kettle or a microwave in 15 second intervals until you get to the correct range.
Add a half teaspoon of sugar to the water and mix to dissolve.
Add two teaspoons of dry yeast to the water and stir to dissolve. Set aside for at least 5 minutes to allow the yeast to start proofing. You are looking for the yeast action to at least halfway fill up the volume of the liquid you are using... all the way to the waterline would be better. This gets the yeast feeding and frothing like mad and proves to us that the yeast isnt dead either by being too old or the water being too far our of optimal temp.
Bring the flour bowl back into play.
Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil right on top of the flour. Don't stir it in.
Add the proofed yeast water.
Pick up your hefty spoon and start mixing. Keep mixing.. mix until all of the water is combined and distributed well and the dough starts to relax a little and leaves little to remaining sticky flour to the side of the bowl. The flour should be trying to combine into larger working mass instead of breaking down into shreddy fragments. If after two minutes of stirring it is still shreddy, add another tablespoon of water. After the basic doughball is formed, bring it out to the breadboard or counter and start kneading it... knead it until you want to scream ... at least 10 minutes. You have to get all of that gluteous protein in the flour nice and elastic or you will end up with bread that breaks instead of stretches. After you and the dough have been beaten into submission, tidy it up into a nice little smooth ball. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil into the bowl, swish or rub it around the inside of the bowl to coat and then roll your bread around in the remnants of oil collecting at the bottom. This will: a. prevent the dough from sticking to the bowl as it rises; b. form a moisture layer around the dough to keep it from drying out, and c. olive oil just damn well tastes good on pie.
. Place the moist towel over the bowl to keep the dough moist, warmish, and free of room dust and whatnot.
Set it aside for... well... as long as you desire. In 90 minutes you should have a nicely risen dough you can work with... but if you want one with a more yeasty character with complex flavor development... deflate it, flip it over, and let it rerise time and again for a day and a half if you wish.
There you have a basic dough to work from. Stretching the dough out, toppings, and whatnot are different animals altogether.
