Pizza Dough!

Hi folks!

It's been a long long time, but now here's the new post of The Web for Home!

Today's post is about the not so secret recipe for the pizza dough. I cook pizza every saturday and it's always delicious (this is an opinion of my guests :P )

Ingredients for 4 people

500 g of 00 flour (the most highly refined and is talcum-powder soft)
25 g of yeast (I use the baker's cube yeast, that must be kept inside the fridge)
4 spoons of extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 spoon of sugar
1/2 spoon of table salt
1 glass of warm water (20 cl)

First of all, loose and mix the cube yeast inside the glass of warm water, then add the 1/2 spoon of sugar and make it uniform. Let it rest until you notice some froth on the top (generally 5 minutes are enough).
While you are waiting, mix the 00 flour with the table salt inside a bowl and put the extra-virgin olive oil on top of it.

Pour the water with yeast and sugar in the bowl and incorporate it with the mixture using a wooden spoon. When it will be too hard to turn the spoon, sprinkle flour on the counter or a wooden board and empty the bowl on it. Then put some flour on your hands and start to knead the dough. If the dough is too hard, put a little of warm water on it and continue to knead. Don't worry if it's sticky: just put a little more flour on your hands and knead the dough until it is uniform. Otherwise, if the dough is too sticky and it can't keep its shape, sprinkle a little more flour on the dough and on the counter until it will be elastic and homogenous.

Finally mould the dough into a sphere, take it and throw it on the counter (or board) with all your strength. Then, with a knife, make a cross cut (1 cm deep) on the top of the sphere.
Sprinkle flour on a quite large and deep recipient (preferably wooden) and put the sphere in it.
Cover the recipient with a humid cloth and let the dough rest for at least 2 hours in a warm and not windy place.

The only thing left is to stretch the dough with a rolling pin (preferably wooden with flour on it) and give it a shape (round or rectangular, depending on your baking pan) until it's 4 mm thick (or more if you want a deep-dish pizza).
Cover with a veil of extra-virgin olive oil the baking pan and put the shaped dough inside it. Make several holes in it using a fork and then dress it as you wish (with tomato sauce (NOT KETCHUP!!!), ham, mozzarella, black olives and so on). Finally put some extra-virgin olive oil and table salt on it and put into a pre-heated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes, or until you'll notice that the crust is golden.

Buon appetito!