#1 The Pizza Project

Wanna Pizza The Action?

Welcome to The Pizza Project 🍕

I love pizza. Like, really love it. The kind of love that has me calculating and tweaking dough hydration ratios on a Thursday night and debating how long to retard my dough for best flavour and structure. So I’ve decided to start something I’m calling “The Pizza Project” — a recurring series that will pop up throughout the year, dedicated to the pursuit of pizza perfection.

This isn’t just about recipes (though you’ll definitely get some of those). We’ll dive deep into dough science, fermentation, heat, hydration, sauce philosophy, regional styles, cheese strategies, topping controversies, and whether pineapple is ever acceptable (I’m all for it btw) 🍍✅. Expect taste tests, trials, flops, triumphs, and maybe a few burnt crusts along the way. We will also look at variations of pizza - like flatbreads and calzone plus much more.

Whether you’re a backyard pizza oven obsessive or just love the eating and sharing, this occasional series is for you. It’s about joy, community, and the endlessly fascinating world of flatbread with flair. Let’s make some pizza magic.

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The Dough

Where better place to start on this journey than the dough itself? In coming posts we will delve deep into sauces, toppings, temperatures, ovens, variations and much more, but before all that we need a killer dough! Now I am not saying my dough is the best in the world - we are always striving for perfection, and to improve all the time. This dough though is one I have been making and developing for a while now, it is pretty strong in terms of it’s flavour, structure, cook ability - the ability to produce those leopard spot patterns and it’s pretty versatile. But… and that is a big ‘but’, this is The Pizza Project and it is a collaborative effort, so if you have the best dough out there then let me know and we can swap notes, a good place to start would be in my chat.

We will start with my killer dough, which you need a good run up to make the best pizza. It is safer all a three to four day process. Admittedly most of that is just patiently waiting for the dough to prove, develop structure and produce a great flavour but nonetheless you will need to plan. For those of you who are a bit more spontaneous I will include a great pizza dough that will get you out of a spot if you really need to make pizza tonight. So… options, but as always; (and especially with pizza), the more love and time and effort you put into making something… the better it will be, so let’s get started. First the dough ingredients…