As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, you can take the dough straight out of the bread machine and use or let it sit in a bowl. Either way you’re ready to go so get yourself some flour (same as you’ve been using or any plain flour to be honest) and have a work surface clean & dry ready to work on (chopping board or even directly onto your worktop if, like me, you have one that doesn’t scratch easily). Ideal work surfaces would be large and made of marble or stainless steel. I have neither, it’s an old kitchen worktop and we manage just fine.
Dust the work surface down with flour, don’t be shy with it you need a tablespoon ish amount spread over an area about 30cm round. Plonk the mass of dough down into this flour patch and turn it over and pat it into a nice round shape. Cut this into 3 or 4 pieces with a big knife and roll them in the flour and like with the whole, cup and shape it into a round shape. Drop each of the balls onto the flour with the ‘seam’ side down. I say seam because you’ll end up with one as you shape it. Then dust them down with another small sprinkling of flour and move them off to one side as you leave one to make a base with. Here we go…
Using the flat of your fist, press down into the dough ball and it will start to form but go steady as at this stage it’s very important to get an even surface. You’re not trying to get a crust edge going here by the way, just move it in circles so you even out the process, flour underneath (or on top and turn it over) and you’ll have a base that moves around quite well without sticking. Very soon you reach the limit of using your fist and you need to begin stretching but again, slowly otherwise you will tear the base and that starts getting messy. Tip: If you do break the surface, it’s often better to try to repair it than start again – press and hold the edges of the tear together.
As you turn the base and stretch, over and over, small steps at a time, you’ll see it gets quite thin, just keep an eye out for it becoming semi-transparent as this is where you’ll get problems. Don’t worry too much about the shape either, I’ve unintentionally made them like geographic boundaries of the UK but they still taste good. I should have mentioned this earlier but feel free to cheat with the rolling pin on your first go. It will kill the air in the dough so you’ll lose some of the rise but it’ll stop you throwing the dough at the wall / cat / spouse if you get into a pickle. Been there, done that, been forgiven by the spouse and the cats.
I’ll assume you’ve done that bit – well pat yourself on the back because that’s the difficult bit done (although there’s another 2 or 3 pieces to do). Once you get quick at the whole thing you can make all the bases and crack on but at this stage, you’ll be wise to just have a go at the first one as the clock is ticking. Time to go to the last stage of pizza making – put the toppings on and get it into the oven.