My Favourite Pizza with Crispy Crust

📝 Ingredients

• 255 g all purpose flour
• 5 g fine salt
• 4 g instant yeast (or 12g fresh yeast or 6g dry yeast*)
• 175 g lukewarm water
• 5 g sugar
• semolina or polenta for the base
• 4 tbsp tomato sauce
• 2 balls of mozzarella di buffala
• prosciutto, basil, rocket, mushrooms anything you like!
• drizzle olive oil

👨‍🍳 Instructions

1. 1--- For the dough ---
2. 2Mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl.
3. 3Make a hole in the centre and add the water and olive oil.
4. 4Mix with a spoon or spatula from the centre and slowly adding the flour from the sides.
5. 5When the spoon isn't helping you mix anymore, switch to your hands. In the end you'll see you will have to take the mix off the bowl and knead it a bit on the table to mix it properly.
6. 6If it's sticking to your hands add a bit of flour at a time until it isn't. Don't over-do it though because if it goes too dry then it won't be able to rise as nicely.
7. 7Knead by hand 30min or on an electric mixer for 15min on full speed with the hook attachment. At this point you could freeze the dough for up to a month.
8. 8Now we need to let it proof. If you're making one medium pizza then make a ball from the dough and put it on a clean surface or tray with semolina so it doesn't stick. On top we put a damp cloth so it doesn't dry out. If you're making 2 20cm pizzas like mine then divide the dough and shape it before proofing. If your dough was frozen it needs to come to room temperature before you start timing the proofing process. In total it needs to proof at least 2 hours and a maximum of 4.
9. 9On the last 30min of proofing turn on your oven to its maximum temperature, broiler included. If you're scared it would be to high or don't know what the maximum temperature is, set it at 250C. Inside the oven must be your skillet / pizza stone / oven tray preheating as well. Place it really close to the top of the oven.
10. 10Once proofed, stretch the dough using your fingers on a surface with semolina or polenta so it doesn't stick.Press down with your fingers leaving a nice edge around where it won't have any toppings. Then you rotate it and continue.For further reference watch the video above.
11. 11Once the dough is nicely stretched and thin we add the tomato sauce, mozzarella and drizzle a bit of olive oil. If you have a pizza peel or even a cake lifter you can add a bit of semolina on top of it and lift the pizza. Then place it on top of your really hot skillet / baking tray / pizza stone. If you don't have one of those you can slide it off the table if someone helps you hold your cooking surface for you. Do it fast though so it doesn't break!
12. 12Put the pizza in the oven, again pretty close to the top. If it's a home oven it will probably need at least 4min and maximum 15min so be really careful not to burn it by staying close!
13. 13When it comes out of the oven we add the fresh basil leaves and serve immediately because there's nothing like freshly baked pizza.