250g flour
5g fresh yeast
160 ml water
some sugar
some salt
To
be honest, this is my Mom’s old pizza recipe – she used to bake it when I was a
teenager. Don’t laugh – I started eating pasta and pizza only when I was 17.
Well, in Romania, we were just starting to serve these dishes back then. Also,
I thought I wouldn’t like them. Aaaah, with my Dad allergic to mushrooms
(or so we thought), my parents avoided feeding me mushrooms, although my Grandpa
used to go mushroom picking and did such a great job every time.
Even
now, that taste of Romanian tomatoes combined with mushrooms on some fluffy
dough seems unequalled – but I will talk to you about mixing these flavours
some other time, it makes my mouth water right now and I still haven’t had my
lunch. :-)
I
adapted my Mom’s recipe – and I guess that this pizza dough is what I baked
most. I could do it with eyes closed, just feeling the dough based on the flour
used. With whole grain wheat, its texture is different and it takes more time
to rise.
You
will also learn to differentiate between these textures; finally,
here’s the recipe—
Remove the fresh yeast from the fridge a few minutes before working with it.
Add it to 160 ml of lukewarm water and sprinkle some sugar
(it’s something that I learned from a friendly lady working in one of my neighbourhood’s
stores; she's a good friend now). Let it sit for 10 minutes.
After
adding 200g of flour into a bowl, pour the mix of water, sugar, and yeast
into it and put in salt and sugar to taste (but not too much). Start
kneading and adding as much flour as needed until the dough is no longer sticky
and you can shape it into a ball.
Cover the bowl with a lid, a kitchen towel, or a paper towel and leave the
dough to rise for one hour, in a warm spot.
From
here on, you can use the dough. We will keep baking with it, you’ll see! J
