Now if you are at the beginning of the “making your very own Perfect Pizza Dough”, there is good chance you have tried out a couple of different recipes. We even have our own one on our website.
While our own go-to recipe is easy and simple to make, we are going to be dead honest, it’s not authentic pizza dough.
You have probably tried making pizza from normal bread dough or bought premade bread dough from your local supermarket and soon realized that it’s no easy task to get the dough in a round pizza shape. You roll and knead and roll again. Later you will take a kitchen plate and cut a circle in the flatly rolled bread dough out of frustration, but let’s be honest. Just because it is round does not make it a pizza.
You add your toppings and next you will need to get this perfectly round flatly rolled bread dough pizza into your Pizza Braai. You soon realize this is not as simple as it looks. The dough is sticky, and you struggle to get the pizza on your spade and once it is on you have already started to deform your perfectly round circle which you spent so much time on. (You then realize that with the next pizza you will need to add more flower to the spade to keep the pizza from sticking)
Next you need to get your already deformed sticky pizza into your Pizza Braai. You open the drawer and try to flick you bread dough pizza into the oven only to realize that yes, it is sticking again. You flick and wiggle with cheese and toppings everywhere except where they are supposed to be.
Eventually you get your pizza (if you can still call it a pizza) into the oven and all your effort to get this piece of bread dough round was all for nothing. Frustrated, you close the drawer and bake your pizza any way – we will just call it homemade, so it does not need to be perfect. The homemade bread dough pizza comes out of the oven, and it is still damn good, but it is still not round, and you ask yourself, how do they get pizza’s round and how do they get the pizza to just slide of the spade so simply?
The next pizza night you go the shop and buy premade pizza bases, add your own toppings, and guest what? The premade bases don’t stick to the spade and slides easily into the drawer. No fuss and the pizzas come out amazing.
But still, you wonder how do they get the pizza’s so perfectly round, and will you ever be able to toss your own pizza dough in the air like a real Italian pizza chef?
The answer is yes, but first you need to understand that authentic pizza dough and bread dough is not the same thing.
Pizza dough can take hours to make, some up to 36 hours.
There is hydration percentages, weights, temperature, and flour type that needs to be taken into consideration. Making proper pizza dough is almost a combination of art and science.
Secondly, proper pizza dough should NEVER be rolled out. The dough should only be stretch by using your hands and fingers. This allows the air to stay in the dough and scooping up the raw base with you spade is much easier.
Now, this might sound a bit overwhelming as not many people have so many hours to spend on something that seems to be relatively simple. But still, you want to try it. You want the experience but without the waiting.
Luckily, we have found a solution. If you are staying in Cape Town at least.
On our own search for the perfect pizza base, we found FEASTON.
They make authentic pizza dough that comes in a pizza kit and can be delivered to your door.
The dough balls can be frozen for up to 3 months or kept in the fridge for up to 7 days. They work great for camping trips as transporting premade pizza bases is always an issue. The dough balls are small and comes in a sealed bag, so they are perfect to throw in the camping fridge or cooler.
It is so much fun to make your own pizza with their dough. It is easy to shape and toss and because it is proper pizza dough, it is not so elastic and sticky.
Use a mixture of normal flour and Semolina to a ratio of 50/50 on your working surface and on your pizza spade so you can effortlessly scoop up your pizza and slide it into your Pizza Braai.
If you want to order these amazing Pizza Kits, you can find them here:
Happy Pizza Braaing
