I'm staying with my parents this week. My mum told me she had a pizza oven so I thought I'd put my skills to the test and see what we could do. However this is the 'oven.'

Challenge on.

The local Asda doesn't have any 00 flour so I have Allison's strong white bread flour and some all purpose plain flour to work with. I need to make the dough fairly quickly, we need to eat tonight, so here is what I came up with.

First we need a straight-forward recipe:

490g of Strong White Bread flour (because that is all I had left)
185g of plain all purpose flour
405g of tap water
1/3 tsp IDY (I didn't have scales so guessed at about 1g)
18g of sea salt

10:00 am

Room temperature was around 20 degrees, but no thermometer. My dough temperature was somewhere between 19 and 22 degrees at a guess.

I did a straight mix, everything in together and a vigorous knead for 5 to 10 mins or so. I did a couple of stretch and folds on the hour just for fun.

The dough was fermenting well and I took another guess that by 6pm (dinner time) it might have gone too far, so I put the bulk dough in the fridge for an hour to cool it down a little.

1:30pm

Shaped into 4 220g dough balls (aiming for 10 inch pizzas)

Checked on them at 3pm

OK, making some good progress, might be on target for well fermented pizza balls by about 6pm so leaving them alone for now.

Here they are at 6:30, time to cook.

I reckon these look pretty decent and ready to go.

Stretching out easily and plenty of air

No problems shaping these, I reckon they are at about peak, starting to get some larger air-bubbles, but all good. Now let's try that oven.

I don't have a pizza peel so I decided to put the dough into the oven and top it in place, quickly.

Here is the result, Took quite a while to cook a max temperature, might have been 15 mins. Doesn't look the best but it was perfectly edible.

For the next pizza, I ditched the oven and relied on a frying pan and grill to cook it at a higher temperature. This time the results were pretty decent. By this time the dough was starting to be a bit over-prooffed, I had to pop a few large bubbles.

What have I learnt? It is hard to make a bad pizza. I am now wondering if all my effort to weigh and meassure and over-analyse is really worth the effort. This turned out pretty good.

Our first workshop ran on May 10th 2025 at this fantastic venue. Our 12 pizza students went through all aspects of how to make Neapolitan Pizza and then we all cooked outside in the sunshine at the castle, on our wood oven. Thanks to all who took part and all who helped make this happen. Thanks so much to The Duchy of Lancaster for providing us with this amazing venue. We will be announcing what is next for this venture very soon.

Our session ran from 1pm to 5pm. We talked about what makes a Neapolitan Pizza the ingredients and the techniques, from mixing and fermentation and making dough balls, and how to stretch and launch a pizza.

The results were pretty good and we had plenty left over to feed curious passers-by.

We are working plans to run further workshops for local community groups to provide pizza skills and team-building / well-being. We are also open to taking corporate groups who could use the room for an away day combined with pizza making as a team-building exercise. So, watch this space plenty more pizza coming to the castle soon.

If you have a group in mind that this kind of session might suit please get in touch. We are also keen to hear from anyone who might want to get involved in building up our organisation and learning the craft and potentially building a larger scale business in the future. Could this be you?

Phil says: "This workshop is a must for all pizza lovers who are looking to cook pizzas at home that will rival those from the hallowed restaurants in Naples. Jon is an absolute mine of information and in his workshops he runs through everything from preparing the perfect dough mix, to kneading and balling techniques and then how to stretch a pizza base like a pro. I particularly enjoyed the hands on experience but the best part was the topping and cooking.....and eating! The surroundings at Lancaster Castle are amazing, Jon's tuition is second to none and the pizzas were 'delizioso'. I cannot recommend Jon's workshops enough, book on, you won't be disappointed."

This post is for all those attending one of our classes at Lancaster Castle

Please contact us or speak to us on the day if you have any questions about the day and do let us know if you have any allergies or intolerances, or coeliac disease, so that we can address any specific needs. We cannot make guarantees around allergies so please see the full list of ingredients used at the bottom of this post.

After the event if you have a few mins, please could you fill out our feedback form to help us improve our delivery for next time.

The class is run by Community Pizza Events CIC and is fully insured.
We have 5 a Star food hygiene rating:

Please bring an apron if you can or clothes you don't mind getting flour on. We will have some aprons on the day but might not have enough to go round.

We use a limited set of ingredients on the day. All ingredients and equipment are provided, no need to bring anything or prepare anything in advance

During the session we will be making some dough from scratch in groups of 3. You will be able to take this home with you to make pizza or bread from it at home if you would like to; guidance will be given.

Recipe:

1KG of Shipton Mill 00 pizza flour
600g of water
27g Sea Salt
2g of instant dried yeast

Weigh the water, add the salt to the water, slowly add the flour and stir to combine. Sprinkle in the yeast and mix well.

Turn the mixture out on to the surface and knead vigorously until the dough is smooth and elastic.

• When flour and water are combined, the proteins gliadin and glutenin are hydrated and begin to form gluten. Kneading further encourages these proteins to link up, creating a stronger, more elastic gluten network.
• Yeast consumes sugar in the dough, producing carbon dioxide gas bubbles that become trapped in the dough structure

We meet at The Castle Cafe at 1pm for pre course drink. I am the one in the Chef's tunic! See you there.

Complimentary hot drinks are kindly being provided by Atkinsons who run the fantastic cafe at the Castle.

Fuel for our oven is being provided by Logs Direct who have been a supporter of our community interest company since we began.

Ingredients and supplier information:

Sourced from Brakes:

Mozzarella Cheese (contains milk)

C130980
https://www.brake.co.uk/dairy/block-grated-cheese/hard-cheese/grated-shredded/arla-pro-large-diced-mozzarella-2kg/p/130980
Arla Pro Large Diced Mozzarella

Sliced Pepperoni

C 70305
https://www.brake.co.uk/delicatessen/cooked-cured-meat-poultry/continental/other-continental/sliced-pepperoni-1000g/p/70305?term=C 70305
Sliced Pepperoni

Shipton Mill 00 Italian Flour (Wheat flour, contains gluten)

https://www.shipton-mill.com/products/italian-type-00-farina-di-tipo-00-white-flour-118

Tomato Sauce

https://mutti-parma.com/en/products/flavoured-pizza-sauce/

Additional ingredients:

Instant Dried Yeast
Sea Salt
Water
Dried Oregano
Fresh Basil
Black Pepper
Olive Oil
Parmesan Cheese

April 8th 2025

We are delighted to announce our new collaboration with Lancaster Castle. We will be bringing our community pizza events cookery classes to this fantastic venue in the historic city of Lancaster.

Our first event will be May 10th 2025 to a selection of invited guests. We will go through the process of making Neapolitan pizza in our workshop kitchen, before we move outdoors to cook on our wood fired oven, and eat together in the courtyard of the beautiful Lancaster Castle.

We are actively looking for sponsors to help with the costs of this first event and perhaps beyond as we firm up our plans for the months and years ahead.

Jon from Community Pizza Event CIC: "We are very excited about working with the Castle. What a fantastic venue to cook, eat and socialise. We hope to announce a number of similar events soon and to open these up to local charities, community groups and the public in the future."

Vicki Mathews from the Duchy of Lancaster, “ We are delighted to be helping the Lancaster based  Community Pizza Events CIC, who will be launching their first pizza workshop at Lancaster Castle. Community Pizza Events CIC are a non-profit community focused organisation creating and developing high quality and affordable food. The company works to bring communities together and raise money for local charities. The workshop will provide a community activity that connects people through cooking and eating good food.”

10. Ooni Volt

You might think it a bit strange that an oven is not number one on my list. The truth is that I can make a really good pizza using just a frying pan and a grill. Of course it is much easier to use a proper oven and my go to is the Ooni Volt. It cooks pizza at 450 degrees centigrade and can be used indoors or out.

9. A Room Thermometer

I am a dough nerd and I like to write down all my dough recipes and this means recording the room temperature so I can adjust my yeast and fermentation times another day.

8. A Stand Mixer

Not essential for everyone but if you are making pizza regularly and large quantities then this makes mixing and kneading a whole lot easier and gives you consistent results. I always mix my batch on single speed for exactly 12 minutes.

7. A Turning Peel

A small round headed pizza peel that makes it easier to turn the pizza in a small oven like an Ooni. Not essential but definitely easier than trying to turn with a launching peel.

6. Flat bottomed Ladle.

Just makes spreading the tomato sauce that bit easier. Scoop, drop, spread.

5. Metal Launch Peel.

Sprinkle a little flour and then slide under your topped pizza, stretch a little further on the peel and then launch into the oven. Try not to leave the topped pizza on the work surface for very long as that is when it begins to stick.

4. Large mixing bowls.

One for the cheese, one for the sauce, one for the flour. Also used for weighing out the ingredients. My bowl takes 4kg of flour and my mixer can take 8Kg of four for a single batch.

3. Dough trays

I can’t do without these. I have some that will stack and fit in a domestic fridge and other larger ones for when I am doing bigger events.

2. Precision Scales.

Longer fermentation times need tiny amounts of yeast and this requires precision scales. They are quite cheap and I cannot risk making dough without having an exact yeast measurement for my records.

1. Dough Scraper

This is the top of my list for 'cannot make pizza without.' I use it to cut up my dough and shape it but most importantly it helps me get the dough balls out of the tray and ready for stretching and topping. One of the most important parts of successful pizza making is to get the dough balls out without squishing them or messing up the shape. If the dough ball contracts the gluten will tighten and the pizza ball is hard work to shape.

There you have it, my top 10. Tell me what items you cannot do without and what you think I have missed.

Our Pizza in the Park event would be much more difficult without the support of our sponsors. I would like to tell you a little about them.

Logs Direct

This company has always provided us with logs for our pizza ovens and are doing so again this year. Nicola from the company has written us an article.

Treat Logs and Charcoal as Menu Ingredients

The recent boom in outdoor or indoor pizza oven purchase continues in 2023, however fuel (logs & charcoal) still seems to be the forgotten ingredient. Quality is the secret to delivering great food cooked with a real flame or hot coals and, to
access that, look no further than Logs Direct. The company scans and tours the globe to source the best restaurant cooking solutions and even invests in its own product development, to ensure it offers the very best options for those eating from ‘forno’ to fork.

Leonardo – the super-efficient, 100% compressed beech wood briquette is the carefully perfected ‘descendant’ of other free-from, easy-to-store boxed briquettes, created with pizza oven owners in mind. With no additives, glues or noxious chemicals, it’s absolutely perfect for those making food safety a top priority. Meanwhile, reduced oven roll, due to an oxygen-flow-friendly six-sided design plus an under-8% moisture content, ensures this Smoke Control Area-compliant log combusts brilliantly. It generates long-lasting embers, to help keep the oven temperature up, but practically no ash, ensuring ovens stay clean.

Match this food-safe wood up with a Logs Direct paraffin-free, eco-firelighter, made from wood strips and wool soaked in clean candle and beeswaxes, and your food will taste a treat. For slimline, dense beech logs to suit even compact ovens, turn to ‘Piccolo’. Extra-dry and dense, these have a great heat output and burn hot and long – with very little ash again.

Meanwhile, regular kiln dried Alder logs are still in popular demand at Logs Direct, so you can create pizza just as authentically as any Italian chef. Barbecue chefs have long warmed to Logs Direct’s restaurant-grade charcoal. All options in
the range, from standard to premium lumpwood charcoal, are selected to make sure the coals light easily, get up to temperature fast and produce long-lasting and great quality heat, without the bi-product of lots of ash and mess. Easy to handle and store, Logs Direct charcoal is a number one choice for many chefs putting grilled foods on the menu.

If you’re now fired-up and ready to try products out, visit www.logsdirect.co.uk or call 01524 812476 to speak to the family-run business always happy to offer advice at no extra charge.

On March 25th we cooked and delivered 40 pizzas to our neighbours. This event was a warm-up event for our big Pizza In The Park day on May 27th. The money raised will go towards our local Playground Repair Fund run by the local charity The Fairfield Association. We took around £280 on the night with approximately £50 of costs.

We worked out that 50 pizzas would require 8kg of flour. This is the maximum capacity of our mixer. On Friday night we made the dough and here is the recipe we used.

8Kg Shipton Mill 00 Flour
4l8Kg Water
216g Salt
11.2g Instant Dried Yeast (Should have been 8g)
14 degrees Room Temperature
21 degrees Water Temperature

12 min mix in spiral stand mixer
22 Degrees Dough Temperature

Bulk fermentation 8:30pm to 8:30am

Balled-up by 10am and left to rise at room temperature.

The amount of yeast was two much and after 12 hours the dough had more than doubled and was beginning to collapse. The recipe above needs the yeast adjusting to 8g or perhaps a little less.

The dough balls were at their best early on around 4pm where the oven spring was really good and the dough was easy to work with. Later on the dough was slackening and becoming more sticky and not rising as well in the oven.

As usual the most popular pizzas were Margherita and Pepperoni and Ham and Mushroom.

By 7:30pm Charlie and Alfie had delivered 37 pizzas and it was time for the Ooni to cool off and for us to tuck into some pizza. Margherita for the lads, olive and anchovy for myself and David and a couple of cold beers.

If you are interested in doing something similar in your own community please get in touch. If you have a charitable event that you think would be a good fit, please let us know

Archive:

Here is the info for our next pizza delivery night.

Saturday March 25th from 5pm

Please let us have your orders in advance. You can contact me personally or via our Facebook Page: or on our local Fairfield Facebook Page. Open to orders from anyone within a few minutes walk of my house! Payments will be taken by card a couple of days in advance.

We are Community Pizza Events CIC (registered food business company number 13869979).

We will be cooking fresh Neapolitan style pizza in our new Ooni Vault.
Our dough bases are made from Shipton Mill Italian 00 grade flour and DO contain gluten. The only other ingredients in our dough are water, seat salt and a very small amount of dried yeast. The doughs are fermented for 24 hours and are easily digestible.

Each pizza is topped with Mutti Tomato Sauce.

Our Menu:

Margherita: £7.00

Italian Mozarella, Mutti Tomato Sauce, a sprinkling of parmesan, fresh basil, olive oil

Marinara: £7.00

Mutti Tomato Sauce, fresh basil, Olive oil

Garlic Bread: £6.00

Garlic butter, fresh basil

Any toppings: £8.50

choose from:
Olives
Spinach
Ham
Mushroom
Pepper
Sweetcorn
Anchovy
Pepperoni
Pineapple

We cannot completely eliminate the risk of trace of nuts, milk or eggs in any of our dishes. Olives may contain pits.

If you have an Ooni or some kind of home pizza oven and you want a simple and dependable recipe, this is it.

1000g of Strong White Flour (ideally 00 grade)
600g of water at approx 24 degrees centigrade.
27g of sea salt
1g instant dried yeast

Dissolve the salt in the water, mix the yeast in the flour. Combine well.

Knead vigorously by hand for 15 minutes or in a mixer for 10 mins. It is ready when the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place in a covered bowl and leave for 12 hours at room temperature overnight.

In the morning knock the dough back a bit and form into 6 pieces each weighing 220 grams each.

Leave the dough pieces to rest for 20 mins and then form each piece into a dough ball by folding the corners into the middle repeatedly to tighten up the dough. Then cup your hands and form each puece into a nice round ball.

Place the dough balls into a lightly floured tray and leave for 6 hours or more. The balls will almost double in size and look something like this.

Press, stretch, top, bake.

Don't eat too much!

On the day, expect delicious wood-fired pizza, beer and wine, soft drinks, live music and a raffle; maybe a bit of dancing.

All money raised on the day will go towards the Fairfield Associations playground renewal fund so please eat lots of pizza on the day! We are aiming to sell 300.

Stay in touch with the latest news on our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/FairfieldAssociation

The event will be held at Fairfield Playground on May 27th from noon and is run by the Fairfield Association (registered charity no. 1058030) and the catering will be provided by Community Pizza Events CIC (registered food business company number 13869979).

Here are the coordinates to help you find it: 54.045179, -2.809187

If the weather doesn't go in our favour then we will keep you updated on this page.

Please take a moment to thanks our event sponsors who make a big difference to the money that we can donate.
Shipton Mill have kindly donated flour for our dough.
Logs Direct are providing wood for our fire.
HotFoot gave us £250 towards our ingredients

We will be cooking fresh Neapolitan style pizza in our wood fired oven.
Our dough bases are made from Shipton Mill Italian 00 grade flour and DO contain gluten. The only other ingredients in our dough are water, seat salt and a very small amount of dried yeast. The doughs are fermented for 24 hours and are easily digestible.

Each pizza is topped with Mutti Tomato Sauce.

Ingredients supplied by Brakes

Mozzarella Cheese: Brakes: C 130980
Pepperoni: C 135639  
Ham: C 74704 500g to 1Kg
Olives: C 71250
Sea Salt: A 4349
Sweetcorn: A 85128

Additional ingredients from Aldi

87415 Parmesan
86126 Ham
845452 Basil
78966 Mushrooms
815458 Peppers
728670 Onions

We cannot completely eliminate the risk of trace of nuts, milk or eggs in any of our dishes. Olives may contain pits (though unlikely).

The playground in our area is the hub of our community. My kids spent much of their childhood there as did many of our friends. As many of us don't have gardens it has been so important to have access to a green space.

But, all is not well and it is showing its age and is reaching a point where it might be condemned. It needs to be safe and modernised.

The playground is maintained by the Fairfield Association and they need £35K to make it well again. Money has been raised but we still need to find another £7K.

Let's eat as much pizza as we can on May 27th down at the playground and have a party. All proceeds go to the fund. We are going to make 300 doughs this time and will be serving from 12 noon until dark.

The Fairfield Association is a registered charity no. 1058030

Community Pizza Events is a registered Community Interest Company no. 13869979

To make a donation please visit this link

Organising an event like this is quite involved and we are looking for helpers. We need dough makers, cleaners, flyer distributors, shoppers, front of house, health and safety, musicians, magicians! If you can be involved in someway please get in touch using the form below or for those that know me contact me on Facebook or phone me or knock on my door!

Mix yeast into flour
Dissolve salt into water
Combine and mix thoroughly (by hand or mixer)

Knead vigorously by hand for 15 mins or in a mixer for 12 minutes.

Place dough in bulk in a covered bowl at a room temperature of about 20 degrees centigrade.
After 2 hours gently stretch and fold the dough 4 times (quarter turn the bowl).

After about 4 to 6 hours the dough should be smooth and dome shaped. You should see some small bubbles and when you press your finger into the dough it should spring back slowly but not entirely.

Take the dough out of the bowl and gently shape it into a round ball. Now, leave to rest for about an hour covered in a cloth.

Divide the dough into 6 or 7 parts at 220g each.
Form each part into a dough ball, leave to rest for 30 mins.

Take each ball in turn and tie it in a knot by folding the edges into the middle and then use your hands to form a tight ball.

Place dough balls into a floured proofing tray and cover. After 4 to 6 hours they should be ready to bake. Enjoy.

There is a lot of discussion on the various online pizza groups around pre-fermenting pizza dough and plenty of confusion around what it is and if we should use it. It has been hugely popularised by an influential pizza chef called Vito Iacopelli who does some great youtube videos on pizza making.

It is well know that a longer fermentation creates more complex flavours in the finished dough. This can be achieved at a variety of temperatures, down to you to experiment if you can detect a difference.

Long fermentation comes at a price. It isn't as convenient when you are hungry and can also weaken the gluten structure in the dough as over time protease enzymes begin to slowly degrade the gluten that has built up. So, why might we only want to long ferment a part of the dough and not all of it? Here are some possible reasons.

Number 1: Flavour

Increasing the length of fermentation (up to a point) will bring you a more flavoursome dough. You also don't need to use as much yeast which might be better for digestion. But, a long fermentation could weaken the dough a bit, perhaps not enough to worry a pizza chef but perhaps more important if you are making a loaf. Also, perhaps a long fermentation with all the dough gives your dough too much flavour for you liking, maybe a little sour? Long fermenting just part of the dough is therefore a compromise as you get to top it up with new flour so some of your dough has a long fermentation and the rest of it is shorter.

Number 2: Flexibility

Maybe you don't have the storage to keep a lot of dough fermenting in bulk for 24 hours or more but you do have the space for 1/3 of it. You could ferment part of your dough overnight and simply shape it up the next day and leave to proof. Also, a preferment has a longish window where it can be used. You could use it a little under-ripe and perhaps add a bit more yeast to the final dough if you are in a rush or wait a bit longer and use it without extra yeast. This gives you some flexibility if you are making several batches of bread or pizza throughout the day.

Number 3: Extensibility

If your flour is very strong and you are kneading mechanically you might end up with a dough that is too elastic. Much like an autolyse, if you make a wet preferment like a poolish and don't add any salt to it then you might end up with a dough that is more extensible and is able to expand more in the oven. You will have to experiment to see if this applies to you.

Hope that helps. Please do sign-up and add some comments. It is an interesting area of discussion.

This was our most ambitious event so far. We had just been released out of lockdown and it was time for friends and neighbours to get together and eat pizza.

We raised £2K for St John's Hospice from the sale of pizza and raffle tickets. We made 200 doughs all kneaded and shaped by hand. It was a great team effort and we had really great weather. It was a battle to stop the dough balls over proofing. I was still a beginner and probably used too much yeast.

Here is the video of our great day.

The idea for Community Pizza Events came about during the COVID lockdown.

I thought it would be a nice idea to make and deliver pizza to our neighbours and raise some money for our local hospice (St John's). Most people like pizza and it was easy to drum up support for the event.

We made the dough by hand and cooked in our kitchen oven using a pizza stone. I think we delivered 40 or 50 pizzas that night and made about £300 for charity. We really enjoyed doing it and this first event was a bit chaotic but most people got their food nearly on time and seemed to enjoy it.

Since then we have run several events and have now setup a Community Interest Company to make things more official. We were very grateful to receive some investment funds from two local companies. This enabled us to purchase a couple of Ooni portable ovens, a mixer and items such as dough trays and pizza peels. My neighbour, Matt Green, is an accountant and he agreed to come onboard as a second Director of the company and look after our books.

Why not run an event in your local community, get in touch if you want to give it a go.

The photo above is from an event in 2021 where we worked with young people at Cancer Care. We talked about how the dough is made and then all the young people got the chance to make and cook their pizzas and then we all sat round and ate together. Because of the money that we have raised we were able to fund this event ourselves.

The purpose of the company is to bring communities together and raise money for local charities. We are actively looking to raise money to support our CIC so that we can provide more events and workshops like the Cancer Care one rather than just rely on selling pizza to raise the cash. If you think you might be able to help us with a donation we would love to hear from you.

My name is Jon. I live in Lancaster with my wife and two teenage sons. If you would like to know more about what we do and you would like to get involved please do get in touch.

Last year we decided to get a bit more serious and we setup Community Pizza Events CIC. Myself and Matt Green are the two directors. We gratefully  received £2,000 investment from Lock Step Media and Systems Forecasting. This money helped us to buy a second pizza oven and a stand-mixer, amongst other things.

We hope to achieve the following through our company.

1. Promote the wonders of freshly made pizza
2. Run workshops on pizza making with local charities and organisations
3. Cook and sell pizza in local communities and help bring neighbourhoods together.
4. Raise money for charities.

In the future I am interested in trying to use the experience gained from the CIC to perhaps help some young or disadvantaged people get setup in a pizza takeaway business. This is a bit further down the line but is something to aim for.

We carried out some good events in 2022. Pictured above is an evening at Fraser House Co-Working space in Lancaster. This event was part of the the CO-OP's Time To Talk campaign. We raised money for Lancashire Mind.

During the summer we worked with Cancer Care in Lancaster and delivered some workshops for young people where we talked through the process of making dough and we all got to prepare and cook our own pizzas together.

We also ran an online raffle with prizes supplied to us by Ooni, Shipton Mill and Lock Step Media. Money was donated to Mind and Lancashire Mind.