This is not quite a traditional pizza dough recipe as we add cooked potatoes to the dough, but I promise you, once you’ve tried it, you won’t want it any other way!

I have seen potato added to focaccia bread recipes, not to pizza dough though, but we were very impressed with the result. We have great German friends who eat pizza at least once a week (homemade, take-away, or restaurant) and they attest to the greatness of this dough – thank you Reinhard and Christa!

Christa has made an adaption of her own. She wanted to make pizza, but had no cooked potatoes, so she used the same quantity of Instant Mash Potato powder and said the result was as good. I gave it a try and we like it too. So should you not have any cooked potatoes hanging around the back of the fridge, give this a try. I add ½ a packet more yeast if I use packet mash powder.

(PS: I freeze leftover potatoes in 250g bags so that I always have some for pizza. They probably wouldn’t be great to eat from frozen, but work just fine in the pizza dough.)

We use the pizza oven to bake our pizzas so I can’t give you exact times for baking your pizza in your oven. It takes only a couple of minutes in the pizza oven, but in our standard oven it usually takes about 20 minutes, depending on the size of the pizza and the amount of topping you have put on it.

PIZZA DOUGH RECIPE

450g flour
250g cooked and mashed potatoes (see above)
250ml lukewarm water
1 pkt yeast (about 7g) (enough for 500g flour) (prepare as per package instructions)
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt

METHOD:

Mix all ingredients and knead for about 5-10 minutes. Leave to rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes. This quantity will make about 4 pizza bases.

I spread the work surface with a light covering of flour and roll out the dough directly on worktop, turning all the while to keep it in shape. You can also throw it up in the air if you want to, but I haven’t been quite as successful at this as the Italians! I do pull and pull to get the shape I want though.

And then the real fun begins with discovering new toppings! Keep watching this space for recipe ideas.