Rich Payne, known as Dough and Behold across social media, brings you pizza-related recipes every month from dough ball variations, pizza sandwiches, and the classic deep dish. He's amassed a whopping 125,000+ followers, all of which have found new and exciting ways to use pizza flour - A Matthews speciality!
What first inspired you to start your pizza-themed social media, and how did you develop your passion for it?
I first began my Instagram account as a simple diary to document my pizza making progress. I work in visual effects for TV & film, and photography and videography are a huge part of my life, I wanted to bring a little of this passion to my pizza making. I didn’t want to just make great pizza, I wanted to try and capture it the best way possible...which is a challenge in my tiny kitchen! A few months later there was a Christmas fair at my daughter’s school, so we offered to make pizza for it, and that’s where the Dough & Behold journey truly began.
What's your favourite thing to bake with Matthews Cotswold Flour, and why?
I mean, you KNOW what I’m going to say! Pizza, naturally! The beauty of pizza though is that there are so many different kind of doughs that you can make for different styles, so I’m always tinkering with the wonderful range of flours Cotswold produce. Pizza Flour is my go-to for Neapolitan style, but for higher hydration Pinsa style pizza, or Focaccia I often blend it with the Strong Canadian Flour, and if I’m taking a break from pizza then I’d say I can never resist making a good high hydration focaccia. Its basically therapy if you need to de-stress! Nothing feels better than when your focaccia dough has proved and you place it in your baking pan, apply copious amounts of Olive oil, and then dimple it with you fingers! My favourite part. So yes, when its not pizza, its got to be focaccia!
What's the most memorable or challenging pizza recipe you've ever attempted, and how did it turn out?
I’ve always thought that the best pizza recipes are the simple ones. Just a few quality ingredients that can really shine. I like to make visually striking pizza, and while you want it to look great on social media, it needs to genuinely taste good too! I once spent a few months concentrating on Vegan pizza and found it incredibly challenging not using cheese. It made me look at every aspect of the pizza, the sauce, the toppings, how could I compensate for the lack of cheese and meat. One of my all time favourites used a blended oat cream with courgette, garlic and basil for the sauce, I then topped it with shiitake mushrooms marinated in coconut aminos, and a home made “sausage mix” made from blended butter beans and fennel seeds. I baked it with a little drizzle of olive oil and then post-bake added swirls of thick oat cream and dressed with purple Amaranth leaves. It was a treat for the eyes and the tastebuds. I was really happy with that one.
As a baking ambassador, what are you most excited to share with our community of bakers?
I love meeting fellow bakers and pizza makers. The learning journey is never ending, and as you progress and develop, there are often so many little hacks and tips that you take for granted and often forget to mention, so I love passing these on and seeing the reaction when fellow bakers try them for the first time. Trial and error are wonderful things, and I often say if someone has told you something won’t work, why not try it for yourself anyway, it’s the best way to fully understand certain processes and you will become a better baker for this! There are so many wonderful bakers out there in the community that have generously shared so many tips with me over the years. I’m just happy to keep that flow going!
If you could share one baking tip or secret with fellow home bakers, what would it be?
Ooooh, where do you begin? I guess it would be ‘question everything!’ I think the biggest revelation for me was that great dough needs time. When I first started out I’d read dough recipes that gave you a basic pizza dough in about 2-3 hours. I never questioned this, just blindly followed and I made average pizza for quite some time. If you make your pizza dough at least 20-24hours in advance it will make such a huge difference to your dough. It will be properly fermented and developed, you will be able to digest it more easily, and the flavour will beat any dough that’s a few hours old! If you can make the dough the night before you make pizza, PLEASE try it!
How do you stay creative in the kitchen when experimenting with new recipes?
Ahh that’s easy! Just look around! All the inspiration you need is in your fridge or food cupboard, and if your cupboards are bare, I often take a stroll around the supermarket looking for fresh ingredients, colours, flavours, things that I think might work together. Chuck them in your basket, take them home and experiment! I find creating alternatives to tomato sauce based pizza highly rewarding. Roasting some garlic, blitzing it up with creams and other fresh veg can make some really tasty sauces with pleasing colours. Also, read Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat. If you are a home chef looking to understand how flavours work together, I would highly recommend this book, and then apply this to pizza!
What's one ingredient or tool in your kitchen you can't live without?
It’s got to be my dough scraper! A good friend of mine, Rebecca from @breadonbluetiles gave me a Campbell’s Dough Knife as a prezzie once. I thought all dough scrapers were the same, not this one! Its got a special coating (totally food safe) that makes it so easy to deal with wet dough. I honestly covet this little thing!
