Pizza

This recipe is adapted from one by Ken Forkish in his book Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast.

Utensils

• oven
• cling film
• large bowl for mixing and letting the dough prove in
• (optional but recommended) pizza stone
• (optional but recommended) flat (no lip on the edge) oven tray for delivering the pizza to the hot oven
• (optional) dough scraper
• (optional) blender to make a smooth sauce / pesto

Ingredients

For the dough

• 400g strong white bread flour
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast (other yeasts will do but will acquire adjustments to quantity)
• 8g salt
• 280g lukewarm water

For the sauce

• 400g tin of tomatoes
• (optional) one tablespoon tomato puree
• (optional) half an onion
• (optional) one clove of garlic
• (optional) herbs of your choice
• (optional) HP Sauce! / soy source / something to give it some umami
• salt and pepper to taste

For toppings

• (optional) mozzarella / other cheese / vegan equivalent
• (optional) a few thinly sliced vegetables of your choice (peppers, mushrooms, olives...)
• (optional) nuts / herbs / olive oil for a quick pesto

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together and knead too a loose sticky dough
• Form the dough into a ball, place it in a lightly floured covered bowl and leave it to prove in a warm place (around 25 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes)
• Letter-fold the dough and return it to its proving bowl
• Leave to prove until doubled in size - around 5 hours!

That gives us some time, so make your sauce / prep your toppings

• finely dice the onion
• heat a pan on low and fry the onion till soft
• add the finely diced / crushed garlic for a minute or two
• add the remaining ingredients and simmer on low for at least 15 minutes
• (optional) blend the sauce, it's easier to spread on the pizza 
• (optional) blend together some nuts, herbs, olive oil and seasoning to make a pesto, e.g. walnuts and parsley

Back to the dough

• Split the dough into balls around 340g in weight
• Lightly cover the balls with olive oil and cling film and place in the fridge for a couple of hours to a coupe of days
• Preheat oven and baking stone to 250 degrees Celsius - will take around an hour
• Shape
• Flour a peel / baking tray, place dough on it and quickly cover with sauce and toppings
• Slide directly onto the hot stone and bake for around 6 minutes
• Serve

Construction complete

So a long weekend of fairly heavy work got the main structure built, it was tiring but fun. 

Having a retired ceramicist on hand definitely helped 🙂

Treading the clay / sand mix was quite therapeutic.

Marking out the hearth, the ratio of dome height to door height is apparently important for good airflow.

Tamping down the sand-form took a while.

After a few days' drying the sand scraped out pretty easily and nothing collapsed.

A slight crack keeps appearing above the door, I keep patching it, we'll see how it goes.

Made a peel from a frond off the palm tree and a bit of ply.

Mud Oven

It's been on the cards for a while but I've finally made a start on making a mud oven. Might take a while to complete but hopefully will be done over the summer. 

Expenditure so far is as follows: 

• 18 Firebricks £65.60 (delivered)
• 2x2.4m fenceposts £26
• 5x2m treated timber £20
• 75kg fireclay £70 (delivered) 
• 1 York stone slab £0 (was lying around the garden)