Romesco Sauce, Broccoli & Mozzarella Regenerative Pizza

I’ve been testing the brand new Regenerative Pizza Flour for a few months now, and I’m incredibly impressed. I’ve been searching for that sweet spot that makes it accessible for the home user to use for the first time and get amazing pizza dough. I have settled on 58% hydration. This gives you a fantastic dough, super extensible, easy to handle, and bakes up a treat in a pizza oven. It works perfectly for a 20 hour room temp proof, but can also produce great results if you decide to store it in a cold fridge for 2-3 days. I love it so much I’m going to continue using this flour for all of my standard Neapolitan style pizza bakes going forward.

Baker: Rich Payne / Dough & Behold
IG: @dough_and_behold
Makes: 6x270g dough balls
Prep time: 20 hours room temp
Bake time: 60-90 seconds @430°c in an Ooni pizza oven
Flour(s) used: Cotswold Regenerative Pizza Flour

Making the Dough

First off, add 90% of your water to the bowl.
Crumble all your Fresh yeast into the bowl (Or dried yeast) and whisk gently to dissolve.
Add all of your flour to the bowl
Turn your mixer on to a slow mixing speed (30-40%) and wait for the ingredients to combine and mix until there are no dry bits. I usually set a timer for 5mins for this. Add a little bit more water but not all of it whilst this mixes.
Once there are no dry bits of flour, cover the bowl and let it rest for 30-45mins. This allows the dough to absorb the water properly and let the gluten begin to develop.
After around 45 mins, add all your salt into the mixer and all of the remaining water.
Mix at a slow speed to start with while to salt and water is mixed in, and then increase the speed a little for a minute or two. When it looks like the dough is becoming smooth, stop the mixer and let the dough rest for about 10 mins.
After 10 mins, give the dough another mix for around 5 minutes. If at the end of this your dough feels nice and smooth, then take it out of the mixer. If the dough still looks a bit lumpy, let it rest and and repeat this process one or two more times until you are happy. You will notice how the dough becomes smoother as you let it rest.
Once happy with your dough, place it onto a clean work surface and gently shape it into a ball. You can use a dough scraper to kind of push it along your work surface to develop surface tension so you end up with a nice, tight, smooth dough ball.
Place this Dough ball in a lightly oiled container with a lid.
Leave out at room temp overnight to bulk prove.
At 8am the next morning, empty the dough from your container out onto a work surface and divide it into 6 x 270g dough balls.
Weigh the doughballs to make sure they are all even weights.
To shape the dough ball grab it in one hand and fold it into itself a few times to make a tight, smooth ball.
Once you are happy your dough balls have enough surface tension place them into either a small dough tray with a lid, or for best results at home, I oil an individual breakfast bowl and place the Dough ball inside and cover it with cling film (or even better you can get silicon covers online that mean you use less cling film plastic)
Once your balls are in the bowls and covered, leave them out at room temp for another 5 hours and you are ready to bake. (You can ball up the night before you go to bed if you want to give your dough balls even longer time to rest) Both methods work well.

Making the Pizza

Take your tenderstem broccoli, bring a small pan of water to the boil and place the broccoli in the water to blanche it for around 30 seconds, then drain from the pan and rinse in cold water. Pat the broccoli dry with a paper towel, and place to one side until needed.
Preheat a small frying pan over a medium flame, grab a large handful of flaked almonds, drop them into the pan and spread evenly with a wooden spoon. Stir the flakes regularly until they begin to turn a nice golden brown. When they do, turn off the heat and pour them into a small bowl to cool and set to one side. You’ll add these to the pizza at the end of the bake.
So, your doughball is opened out and stretched to around 10 inches and you're ready to top.
Add a swirl of Olive Oil to the base.
Add your sliced mozzarella (important note, once you've sliced your mozzarella, try to do it a few hours before you bake and place it in a colander with some paper towel on top. This will allow the excess moisture to drain from the mozzarella and will stop your pizza being a soggy mess! If you don't have time to do this, then slice it and then dab a paper towel over it and try to soak as much moisture as you can before you add it to the pizza)
Spoon over your Romesco Sauce. You don’t want to cover your pizza entirely, just five or six evenly spaced tablespoons.
Take your tenderstem broccoli and add around 10-12 stems evenly over your pizza. Small, thin stems work best for this pizza, so be selective when you choose which ones you add.
Slide your pizza onto a 12 inch pizza peel and give it a final re-shape, stretching it out to the very edges of the peel and then launch into your oven and watch those crusts puff up!
After around 60-90 @430ºc seconds your pizza will be ready, the crusts taking on some colour with little bits of char on the edges, just how I like it!
Place the pizza onto a wire rack to cool, and whilst you do this, quickly grab a ball of Buffalo mozzarella and tear five or six pieces off and place evenly over your pizza. The residual heat with gently melt and soften this mozzarella.
Next grab some chilli oil (I like to make mine simply by pouring a good handful of flakes into a small pan of olive oil over a low heat and let it steep for 15-20mins, then filter into a sterilised jar and leave to cool) carefully pour, or spoon your oil sparingly over the pizza. This adds a little extra heat and also some colour.
Take your toasted almonds and sprinkle over the pizza. Not too many, just enough that you get a little taste with each bite.