Pizza

Pizza is my significant other's favourite food. Whenever I ran out of ideas to cook, or have some veges to clear, this will be one of our regular meals during the weekends. However, this time I took a challenge to make it on a weekday after coming back from work. Of course it took me 2 days in total to come out with this perfect pizza. I made the dough the night before and let it proof in the fridge for almost 24 hrs, the result was fantastic.

Thanks to Del (aka Hula_mom) for sharing this great recipe (It is my favourite now.) The cornmeal gives the pizza that extra flavour. Also, before putting the pizza base on the pan, sprinkle some cornmeal on the pan - makes it fragrant and lots of flavour.

The recipe is similar to the recipe that I used regularly except that this one uses bread flour instead of all purpose flour. The rest of the ingredients are the same. I used my breadmachine to knead the dough but you can knead it manually if you like.

Ingredients

Makes 2 12inch pizza base
1 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups bread flour
1 tbsp cornmeal (grainy)
2 tsp instant yeast

Method

By Breadmachine
1. Dump all the ingredients into the breadmachine pan in the above order and select 'Dough'
2. Once the dough program has ended, take the dough out and punch it down
3. Lather some olive oil on the dough, wrap or cover dough with cling wrap and let it proof in the refrigerator for at least 12 hrs.

By hand
1. Mix flour, cornmeal and salt together
2. Add instant yeast and mix it well (Avoid direct contact with the salt)
3. Add water and knead the it into the dough
4. Add oil and continue kneading till the dough becomes elastic
5. Lather the dough with olive oil and wrap or cover dough with cling wrap and let it proof for at least 12 hrs.

Preparing the base
1. Take dough out of the refrigerator and leave it out till it reaches room temperature
2. Punch down the dough to let the air out but do not over punch it
3. Split the dough into 2 equal balls
4. Roll the dough out and top it with your pizza sauce and toppings of your choice. If you want a pan pizza type, let the base proof for about 30 mins before you start with the toppings.
5. Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius and bake the pizza till golden brown

Note: If you are using active dry yeast, you will need to activate the yeast with warm water before you can use it.