Homemade pizza with fresh brewer's yeast

Now you can’t miss our homemade pizza on Sunday evening.
The dough is always prepared in the morning in order to give the fresh brewer’s yeast the right time for leavening.

It’s a perfect recipe, tested over and over again; it comes from the pizza and focaccia course we took together with Cristina at the FoodLab Academy in Turin.
If like me you love focaccia take a look at our recipe for “Delicious soft homemade focaccia”.

Ready? Sleeves up and hands in the dough!

Ingredients (for 3 260g pizzas)

• 500g medium flour (w260-280). If you like to experiment, try substituting 20% plain flour for whole wheat flour!
• 300g of water
• 3g of fresh brewer’s yeast
• 10g of salt

Preparation of the dough:

• Crumble the fresh brewer’s yeast in water at room temperature : assuming you are in the mountains, the temperature of the water from the tap will be cold compared to the room you are in. The advice is: try to find a happy medium! Using lukewarm water will speed up the rising process, but if you prepare the dough in the morning for the evening, it might not make sense…
• Arrange the flour in a well, gradually incorporate the water. In this initial phase you could help yourself with a fork to make it easier to create the dough.
• Once all the water has been incorporated into the flour, you can start working the mixture on a pastry board for 7-8 minutes, only then add the salt and continue kneading for another 7-8 minutes.

Leavening phases:

• First leavening: create a single loaf, place it in an oiled container at the base, brush the dough with a little olive oil and cover it with a cloth or plastic wrap.
  Using a quality oil you make the dough crunchy, but above all you enhance the taste of your dough: the details make the difference!
  I recommend the extra virgin olive oil from our shop, produced 100% from Apulian olive groves , from our friends at the farm in Martano (LE).
  Put the dough back in the oven with the light on and let it rest for about 3 hours. You will understand that it is ready to double its volume!
• Second leavening : After the indicated time, always check that the dough has approximately doubled, if not, let it rest again. Everything can depend on various climatic factors such as the temperature in the room and the air humidity.
  Then gently remove the dough from the container, divide into 3 pieces of about 260g each and create loaves.
  Grease the base of the trays with oil and place the loaves in it: cover in contact with the dough with plastic wrap, let it rest for 2/4 hours, the reference is always to double their volume .
• Cooking : Spread the dough with your hands, add some tomato puree and a drizzle of oil if you want a red pizza, otherwise just with oil.
  Bake one tray at a time, placing it in the lower part of the oven at 250° ventilated for 6/8min. Subsequently, extract and add the mozzarella and the toppings of your choice, bake again for another 6/8min.
  Check the browning of the dough to evaluate when to take it out of the oven!

Let yourself be carried away by the thrill of kneading, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty, don’t be impatient and leave time for the yeast to do its job, season your pizzas with imagination and you will see they will be “truly exceptional“!