An interesting thing happened. A few days ago, I made pizza dough for four pizzas, as usual. Generally, I do one each for Fiona, Jonno and me, and put the spare ball in an airtight plastic tub in the fridge, then make myself another pizza the next day.
But this time, unknown to me, Jonno was having dinner next door that night. So Fiona and I had pizza, and I put two spares in tubs in the fridge. I made myself a pizza the next night as usual using one of the balls. Then the next night, I made a third. But by this point, even though the dough had been in the fridge all the time, it had continued to ferment so the point that it completely filled the tub, and had become very light and soft.
It was difficult to get out of the tub in anything like a ball shape. I have learned from experience not to try to re-form a ball from proved dough: it amounts to re-kneading, and the resulting ball can’t be stretched or rolled. So I just shaped the mess of super-soft dough as best I could by hand. (Which was not too bad, I’m getting pretty good at this now.)
Well, the pizza was sensational. It was by far the best base I’ve ever cooked, and by some distance the best I have ever eaten, despite being made in a domestic oven (admittedly a pretty darned good one). So light and open inside, so crispy on the outside, so flavourful all through. Honestly, I could have not bothered with the tomato sauce, cheese or toppings, and just baked it as a flatbread, and it would still have been sensational.
So here is my tip for you, my fellow pizza makers: try making your dough two days in advance, and keeping the balls in sealed tubs in the fridge. If you do, let me know how it goes!
