I use a dough that gives about a 65% moisture content to the dough. But that’s not terribly important…

Here’s the basic dough:

• 450 g of white flour (if you want to be posh you can use a type 00 flour, which is a finer milled grain)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 290 mL almost hot water
• 2 teaspoons yeast
• 2 splashes of olive oil

Mix all dry ingredients first in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, dissolve your yeast in the warm water by stirring until you have a slurry of brown water. Add the wet to the dry until a sticky dough starts to form. Now add the olive oil (this will keep things from sticking too much to your hands or spatula).

Dough Wheeling

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Eventually you will get to a point where you need to knead the dough. Some people insist on doing this on a countertop, but that makes a mess and isn’t super necessary. If your bowl is big enough, do it right there. Kneading , hitting, slapping your dough ball for about five minutes. Kees likes to help with the hitting parts.

Coat the inside of your bowl with olive oil and leave your dough baby to grow until approximately doubled in size. I wrap the bowl tightly across the top with plastic wrap to trap in the heat.

After your dough baby is done growing, give him a second round of kneading for about 5 minutes. Again, wrap your dough in more plastic wrap and leave to rest for about 30 to 45 minutes. The dough will grow a little bit more in this time, so don’t be surprised when your plastic wrap expands.

TIME TO DOUGH

On a lightly floured surface, take your dough baby and use your hands to stretch out a small flat-ish circle. It might help to rotate your dough as you flatten it with your hands.

Eventually you can pick up the dough disc off the counter/pizza stone and use gravity to your advantage to help you stretch it out even more. While you do this, be sure to rotate your dough (like you are turning the steering wheel in your car) and that wll help keep your dough as circular as possible.

When you are ready to try dough wheeling, make sure you use your fists. Fingers will poke through the thin dough and you’ll ruin everything.

Fists under the rim (crust) of the dough. Keep rotating your dough faster and faster. Dough goes up while maintaining this rotating motion. While the dough spins freely in the air, it will stretch out thinner and thinner. Depending on how you like your pizza, you can do more or less of this.

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