Old is Good
Pizza dough can be made in lots of ways and recipes vary from 1hr to 5 days to complete! Its widely accepted though that the older the dough is, the more flavour it has and the more digestible it is, meaning you won’t feel bloated afterwards.
This doesn’t mean 5 days of slogging away making dough, its the same amount of work, you just let the dough rise slowly by keeping it in the fridge instead of at room temperature, slowing the whole process down.
Great Flavour
Allowing the dough to ‘ferment’ in the fridge will do wonders to the flavour of your pizzas. Fermenting is essentially allowing the dough to rise as one big mass (‘in bulk’) and allowing the flavour to develop before splitting it in to dough ball sizes. Even just a 24hr ferment will make a big improvement. Now, throw a ‘poolish’ in to the mix and it will take it to the next level!!
What on earth is a “poolish” !?
A poolish is a form of ‘starter’, similar to a sourdough starter. It takes minutes to make and is just a small amount of yeast, flour and water mixed together and left to bubble away & rise for 18-24hrs before making your dough. The poolish is added to the dough ingredients the following day and then, when combined with the bulk fermentation, it takes your pizzas to a whole new standard!
Its easy, try it…!
If this sounds complicated, just give it a try and you’ll soon see that it’s a very simple 3 step process, but more importantly… the pizzas are amazing!!
Day 1 – Make the poolish (5 minute job).
Day 2 – Make the dough using the poolish & keep in the fridge for 24hrs to bulk ferment.
Day 3 – Ball up and return to the fridge for 24hrs to further prove.
Day 4 – Enjoy seriously good pizza!!!
Check out the Classic Pizza Recipe for full instructions…
Also check out the Ingredient Calculator to work out the quantities you’ll need to make the amount of pizzas you want…