Last year I was feeling a bit adventurous so, along with my usual purchase of a 20 kg bag of Canadian all purpose flour ($19.99 including tax), I came home with a 1 kg bag of imported Italian Tipo 00 flour (Camino brand, $2.99). This is a very finely milled wheat flour often used for pizza dough and pasta, in Italy. This particular bag is listed as being made from soft wheat flour, though that’s not necessarily the case with all Tipo 00 flours.
I decided that, at that price, it better make some pretty amazing pizza dough.
And I kept putting off trying it out.
Until NOW … mostly because I want pizza and I’ve got less than a cup of all purpose flour in the house, and no intention of replacing my stash until some time in August.
NOTE: I calculated the protein content (5 gm per 42 gm of flour) at 11.9% confirming, that in this case, it IS a low protein flour.
Tipo 00 Flour Pizza Crust – makes enough dough for one 12 inch pizza
250 gm Tipo 00 flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp instant/bread machine yeast
140 gm room temperature water
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
In a medium sized bowl, add the flour and salt. Stir to mix through. Make a well in the center of the flour and add the yeast, water and olive oil. Mix through with your finger tips until all the flour has been moistened and then gather together into a ball.
Transfer the ball of dough to a clean working surface and knead, without adding any additional flour, for 5 minutes. Cover with the mixing bowl and let rest for 5 minutes. Knead for another 3-5 minutes until the ball of dough is smooth and elastic.
Transfer the ball of dough to a lightly oiled medium sized bowl, turning the ball in the oil to lightly cover. Cover tightly with a sheet of food wrap and drape a towel over the bowl. Put the bowl of dough into a warm place and let rise for 1 1/2-2 hours, or until doubled in size.
Degas the dough and round up into a ball, cover with the food wrap and then the towel and let the dough rest for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 450-500 deg F about an hour before you want to bake your pizza.
Prepare your pizza baking sheet by sprinkling ground cornmeal lightly over the top. Stretch the dough onto your baking sheet. Top and place into the preheated oven.
Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the ingredients are cooked, the cheese is nice and bubbly and the underside and crust is golden brown. Remove the pizza to a cooling rack and let rest for 10-15 minutes before cutting so that the cheese has a chance to set.
Trial 1: The dough weighed 403 gm and it took 13 1/2 minutes to bake the pizza. I estimate that the oven had only been at temp (500 deg F) for about 15-20 minutes. The next time, I’ll start preheating the oven as soon as the pizza dough is ready for its hour of rest instead of waiting half an hour.
Review: There were only a few big bubbles in the pizza crust but they WERE there. I have a couple ideas of ways in which to get more of those bubbles. The underside of the crust was crisp, relatively thin and golden brown and the pizza crust itself was nice and chewy. It’s a good pizza, similar in taste and texture to one available from a popular local pizza restaurant and delivery place. And a lot cheaper. I’d buy the flour again if it was a good price.
And, on a side note: I like using fresh herbs in my cooking but nurturing them is a chore.
Cause … I get bored.
And distracted … so I don’t use them at their peak. In any case, this is my current inventory of culinary herbs.
Inside
Italian Basil
Japanese shiso/ perilla (3 overcrowded pots) and a sad lavender plant
Outside
Mint and Thyme – with a couple of green onion bulbs that I transplanted after harvesting the tops a few times
Thai Basil and Sage
Cooking is Fun ... Really!! 
I have the same problem with herbs in the summer: I don’t use some of them quickly enough. When I want mint, I have to wait for new leaves to grow, but when I have lots of it, I don’t feel like using it… Make sure you harvest shiso seeds (they must be from the previous year, otherwise sowing doesn’t guarantee any results).
Wonderful pizza!
My poor outdoor herbs … haven’t watered them and when I went out yesterday I saw that both the sage and the Thai basil were shriveled. The mint in the other planter are thriving, of course. Threw a bucket of water in the sage/basil planter. I hope they revive.
And the pesto making was put off so now the big leaves are dropping off. I’m iffy on collecting fresh shiso seeds even though the plants have flowered. Both the red shiso plants that the person I sent green shiso seeds to, sent back in exchange, had early flowerings … and died. Never got to use them as there was very little leaf production.
I have all the “usual” suspects but my big experiment this year is epazote, which is supposedly a weed that grows everywhere. i always look for it on my romps with Chance and have never been able to identify it. But anyway, the plant I picked up from the nursery so far is growing like a weed!
So now, you’ve made me hungry for pizza AND ice-cream!!
Epazote … I looked it up. It DOES look like a weed. I look forward to seeing what you do with it. 🙂
The Tipo 00 flour was fun to play with. SO fine in texture it reminded me a bit of cornstarch. Still holding strong on not buying any flour til August 1st. Two more weeks to go … and I want to bake bread SO badly. I saw some bolillos which made me start breathing hard.
haha! The Epazote is for pinto beans and maybe I’ll see what else I can use it for!
Is it supposed to help with gasiness in beans? Cause I’m SURE I ran across a mention of it while doing some net surfing with regard to Mexican/ South American cooking??
I think it is. But it’s also supposed to add a very unique flavor. I took off a leaf and chewed it and it really didn’t taste like much too me, but we’ll see!