Carnival of the Recipes #32 - Basic Pizza Dough

This week I bring you the pizza dough that I make regularly. It may seem that making your own dough is a hassle, but it is sooo much nicer than the pizza bases you can buy from the shops.
Recipe, like last week, comes from Delia Smith's How to Cook, Book One, although I've paraphrased it a bit, and chucked in a few of my own comments.

Makes a 10 inch (25.5cm) pizza base - serves 2

Ingredients

6 oz (175g) plain white soft flour (if you can find breadmaking flour use that instead, that is what I tend to use)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried yeast
½ golden caster sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
4 fl oz (120ml) hand-hot water (this is not as hot as you can stand, just a tad over luke warm is what you are going for here)

To roll out:
2-3 tbsp cornmeal (polenta)

Preheat the oven to its lowest setting

Method

Begin by warming the flour slightly in the oven for about 10 minutes, then turn the oven off. Sift the flour, salt, yeast and sugar into a bowl and make a well in the centre of the mixture, then add the olive oil and pour in the water. Now mix to a dough, starting off with a wooden spoon and using your hands in the final stages of mixing. Transfer to a flat work surface. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes or until you get bored. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl and cover with clingwrap that has been lightly oiled on the surface facing the dough. Leave it until it looks as though it has doubled in bulk (Delia reckons about an hour at room temperature, but it really depends on what temperature your room is! In winter here, I tend to put the bowl on a tray near to the fire, to give it a bit of a boost.)

Once the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 230°C (450°F). Next, tip the dough onto a work surface that has been sprinkled generously with cornmeal to prevent it from sticking (I also find that the rolling pin needs a bit of plain flour sprinkled on it). Knock the air out of the dough (that's the fun part!) and knead it for a couple of seconds. Then grab your rolling pin and roll the dough out to a circle (or something vaguely resembling a circle) that is approximately 10 inches (25.5cm) in diameter.

Voila! You now have your very own pizza base.

What I do from here, is spoon on some pizza sauce (usually it's just tomato paste with some herbs chucked in), put on the toppings of your choice, and then sprinkle some cheese over the top (the cheese I buy is a mix of cheddar, parmesan and mozarella).

Then all you need to do is cook in the oven for 10 minutes, and enjoy.

Serving suggestion: serve this with a cold beer, and preferably eat in front of the telly, watching some footy.