Homemade Herbed Dough Balls

Make your own “Pizza Express” dough balls

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Homemade Dough Balls Recipe:

Ingredients:

1. Strong Plain White Flour - 450 grms

2. Dried Yeast - 1 Level tbsp

3. Sea salt - 1 tsp

4. Warm Water - 300ml

5. Olive Oil - 6 tbsp

With Garlic Butter (Optional)

1. Butter - 100 grms

2. Garlic cloves - 1 to 2 (depending on how garlicky you like your butter)

3. Fresh Parsley, chopped - Small Bunch

4. Salt

5. Pepper

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Method:

1. Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle of the mixture.

2. Add the water, as well as 5 tbsp of the olive oil into the well and mix into the flour mixture with a spoon. Keep taking flour from the inside of the well and mix in until the dough comes together.

3. When you have finished the mixture, it should look like a rough, cracked, folded dough ball.

4. Put the mixture into a well floured surface and knead the dough for about 5 to 10 minutes until it’s smooth and elastic.

5. Grease a bowl lightly with olive oil. Cover the dough with cling film. The side of the cling film that is touching the dough should also be lightly greased with olive oil. Put the bowl in a warm place and leave to rise for about 60 to 90 minutes, or until doubled in size.

6. Next, knead the dough on a well floured surface for about a minute to get the air out of the mixture. Divide the dough in half, then in half again and continue to divide until you have 32 equal balls. Place them on a baking tray covered with parchment paper. (I didn’t have parchment paper to hand so lightly oiled some baking trays) . Cover them with oiled cling film and place back into a warm environment to rise for another 30 minutes.

Baking the dough balls

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Brush the top of each dough ball with olive oil. If you want, sprinkle a little bit of sea salt onto the dough balls. Bake in the oven for approximately 12-15 minutes or until the dough balls are golden brown in colour.

2. If you are serving your dough balls with garlic butter, prepare this while the balls are in the oven baking .Simply mix the (room temperature) ingredients for the garlic butter together while the dough balls are baking in the oven. Alternatively, serve the dough balls with Nutella (although perhaps that’s not so successful if you’re serving them as a starter.

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