The Secret is in The Ingredients - 00 Pizza Flour
Making your own homemade pizza is fun, and exciting and can become quite addictive - particularly wood-fired oven pizzas. And the biggest benefit of all is that you have total control over every aspect of the process.
However, as with all food preparation, the key to preparing and cooking the perfect pizza lies in choosing the ultimate ingredients, and the most important of those is the flour to make the dough.
The key to a good pizza, in our opinion at least, is to have a crust that has a crispy crunch while retaining some chewiness. The flour you choose will dictate how your dough will stretch and cook.
Gluten Content - This Is Critical To Understand
Each different type of flour will have a unique texture which is directly related to its gluten content. For instance, the flour traditionally used in cakes or pastry should be soft and delicate, with an almost silk-like texture. The flour used to make bread is, as you might expect, a little more coarse in texture. You may come across the terminology of hard or soft flours. When the gluten content is low (around 8 to 10 Per cent), such as in cake and pastry flours, then these are designated as soft flours. Bread flour typically has a gluten content of about 12 to 14 per cent, making them a hard or strong flour.
Gluten is a protein that, when wet, transforms the dough into an elastic substance. What is important to understand is that what matters is not just gluten quantity, but also perhaps more importantly, gluten quality. Gluten quality comes as a result of the variety of wheat selected by the miller. It is the gluten which is responsible for the chewiness and springy nature of the final product, and so the higher the gluten content, and the better quality of that gluten, the more chewy the bread or pizza will be. Something you need to take into consideration when choosing your pizza flour.
Nelstrop 00 Pizza Flour
For most people choosing to make a homemade pizza, the style and type of pizza is most often a Neapolitan. A Neapolitan-style pizza is characterized by having a thin base that puffs up around the edges to give that unique crunch. Nelstrops 00 Pizza Flour has been designed to deliver the ultimate Neopolitan-style pizza every time - although we refuse to get drawn into the pineapple on pizza debate, that is for you to decide! The 00 is a type of flour which refers to the texture of the flour. Nelstrops 00 flour is the finest grind that we make. The fine grind, combined with a 12.5 per cent gluten content, of the highest gluten quality, delivers that sought-after crust with just the right texture and taste. It is used by Italian pizza chefs for their pizza bases.
We are confident that once you experience the delicious taste and texture of Nelstrops Pizza flour, no other pizza will ever taste as good again. Nelstrops have a long history and tradition of delivering the finest flours. We have been milling for over 200 years. We are trusted by bakers and chefs all across the United Kingdom and are obsessive in our attention to detail.
We look forward to exceeding your expectations and to you becoming another one of our lifelong customers.
Please Click Here To Buy Our 00 Pizza Flour
Wood fired or oven Pizza Recipe
Ingredients | Grams |
Nelstrop Forza Flour | 500g |
Salt | 8g |
Sugar | 10g |
Instant yeast | 15g |
Water | 300g |
Step 1:
Place all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix them together.Turn out the mixture onto a clean work surface and knead by hand for 5
minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. If you have a mixer
with a dough hook, mix for 2 minutes on slow speed then 6 minutes on
medium to fast speed (times may vary depending on type of mixer). Our
flours have high quality proteins so it is better to knead for slightly longer
than too little to make sure the dough is well developed.
Step 2:
Place the dough in a large bowl and cover with Clingfilm or adamp tea towel and leave in a warm place to double in size. This can take
up to 2 hours.
Step 3:
Tip the bowl out on to a clean work surface and gently knead fora few seconds to take the air out. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces
(214g each) and mould round into a ball. Leave these dough balls to rest
for 5 minutes. At this stage you can use a rolling pin or hand stretch the
dough balls until they are about 1cm to 2 cm thickness. Rest them for 10
minutes before topping with your favourite sauces and toppings.
Step 4:
Place the finished Pizza dough balls in pizza pans or on a baking
tray. Preheat the oven to 240 o C/Fan 220 o C/ Gas mark 9.
Step 5: Bake the pizzas for 10 to 15 minutes or until the dough has baked
and the toppings have melted. Serve right away. Enjoy!