500ml Acqua Panna (still Pellegrino) I used Buxton
5g fresh yeast
10 g ex v olive oil, yes g not ml
900g flour, separated into 600g and 300g
27g sea salt,
get a large bowl and pour in the water, water should be room temp.
Add the salt and stir until dissolved.
Add the olive oil and stir.
Add the yeast and dissolve, squish with fingers while adding, helps it dissolve quicker.
slowly add the 600g of flour (keep the 300g back)
mix in the bowl until it’s forming a dough, it will be wet and sticky at this point but all ingredients should be well combined.
Tip the dough onto your work surface and start adding the remaining 300g of flour, mix this flour in by kneading the dough and adding the flour as you go,
continue kneading for 15/20 mins until a lovely smooth dough is formed and all the sticky dough has gone from your hands and worksurface.
form the dough into a nice dome and cover with a well damped cloth or tea towel, tuck it slightly under the dough and make sure there is no air pockets between the cloth and dough then leave it to rest for an hour.
Remove the cloth gently, peeling it back from the dough slowly then pull the dough from the round into a sausage shape, from this sausage you are aiming to make 6 dough balls, I cut my sausage into six but the chef at the restaurant shaped each dough ball off the end as he went along. Make nice smooth dough balls, try not to do what I did when there and tuck your dough under, leaving a smooth top but like a cats arse underneath rather smooth the dough over and twist and pinch to create an almost completely smooth ball. (hope that bit makes sense)
Place the balls evenly on a tray leaving a good 3cm space between balls, flatten slightly, just slightly and lightly sprinkle with a little flour, cover completely with cling film and leave for a minimum of 5 hours to rest.
When you are ready to make pizza uncover gently, he kept telling me gently, gently, and take off the tray, use a slice or dough blade to gently lift the dough ball from the tray don’t grab it by hand, you want to retain the nice ball shape. Place on a well floured work surface push down in the middle and off you go. use one hand to hold the centre and stretch out with the other. If like Guy and myself you have tried doing this with a Jamie Twoliver or bread dough recipe and struggled cause its like elastic this dough will be a revelation.