…the mashed potato is in your pizza dough.
It’s a little trick taught to me by my friend Trish who grew up in her parent’s Italian restaurant. And it’s a great trick. If you use just the mashed insides of baked potatoes, you’ll add in the starch and help your bases to crisp up. If you add in regular leftover mash, the dough becomes light and lovely. Either way, it’s a great idea for potato smuggling (as is gnocchi – click for that recipe here).
An easy dough – fun to make & great to eat.
Pizza Dough
3 cups bakers flour (plus 1/2-3/4 cup more as you knead the mash in)
7g sachet dried yeast
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup warm water
1 cup mashed potato (Use leftovers or bake or microwave 2 small jacket potatoes, then mash the insides)
Add all the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Pour over the oil and water. Mix together to form a rough dough.
Turn it onto a floured bench. Knead for a minute then add in half the potato. You’ll need to sprinkle over the extra flour as you go – the potato makes it pretty gloopy (but quite fun). Continue adding mash and the extra flour. Knead for about 5-7 minutes. Eventually you will have added enough extra flour in to get the mix back to being a smooth dough. (You won’t believe me at first, when the mix is slimy and weird, but trust me and carry on).
Pop it into an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave somewhere warm to prove for 30-40 minutes until doubled in size. Then punch out the air, divide into 3 pizzas and top with whatever toppings suit your family.
Cook for about 15-20 minutes at 220C.
MAKES 3×12 INCH BASES (these bases are quite filling – 3 feeds my family of four)
If you don’t know how to ‘throw’ a pizza base – I followed the technique in this video. It worked well and provided a frisson of risk and plenty of kitchen laughs.
Don’t forget to top it with my six-vegie pizza sauce.
Six-vegie sauce to morph pizza into a super-smuggler.
Vegie Smugglers 
Emma said,
November 4, 2013 @ 11:21 am
Would this work with sweet potato do you think?
wendyblume said,
November 4, 2013 @ 1:07 pm
yep, I was thinking the same thing yesterday – I reckon it would. Feel free to be our fearless leader with a sweet potato version, take a pic and let me know how you go!
samleader said,
November 4, 2013 @ 11:22 am
Did you know you can make bread dough using the water used to cook boiled potatoes in? This helps extend its life, going stale too quickly is a big downside of home made bread.
wendyblume said,
November 4, 2013 @ 1:07 pm
I didn’t know that Sam – but it makes perfect sense! Will try it out.
Simone Emery said,
November 4, 2013 @ 3:38 pm
So timely! We made your gnocchi recipe this morning ready for dinner tonight. My 19mo helps pat the dough & puts the fork marks in them. They may not be the most consistent gnocchi shapes but they are made with love! I also thought about using sweet potato next time for the gnocchi. Thanks for the inspiration!!
wendyblume said,
November 4, 2013 @ 3:54 pm
yay! Glad to hear someone is making that recipe – it’s a bit fiddly, but a really good one to do with the kids (as you’ve discovered!)
Felicity said,
November 5, 2013 @ 2:00 pm
Looks great. Pizza on the menu later this week so I’ll give it a go. I love that a KFC ad shows up right below the 6-vegie pizza sauce pic. Beautiful juxtaposition. Not sure how these things work, but I’m guessing you’re not really sponsored by a fast food outlet 🙂
wendyblume said,
November 6, 2013 @ 6:45 pm
no. 🙂 this is a free wordpress blog, so I have no control over the ads. One time I had someone complain that it was porn, and I was too shy to point out that the ads are supplied based on the reader’s previous web searches.
I am hoping to shift the blog over to private hosting at some stage next year. Big job.
Elizabeth said,
November 12, 2013 @ 10:37 am
I made this pizza dough yesterday. It was easy to make and my whole family (me included) said it was delicious! It crisps up really well. Will definitely be giving store bought bases the flick.
wendyblume said,
November 12, 2013 @ 3:35 pm
yay! always happy to hear from a happy customer.
Andrea Hughes said,
November 14, 2013 @ 3:13 pm
I have leftover mashed pumpkin in the fridge, do you think it would work also?? Or do you really need the potatoes for the starch?
wendyblume said,
November 14, 2013 @ 5:04 pm
The starch helps, but give it a try and let me know how you go! Just add extra flour if it’s too gloopy.
Andrea Hughes said,
December 6, 2013 @ 3:06 pm
I used the mashed pumpkin, worked beautifully!!
wendyblume said,
December 9, 2013 @ 9:54 am
thanks for letting us know! how orange was the dough?
Misty said,
December 6, 2013 @ 11:35 am
Can I use plain flour? Want to get a start on tea now as we are going out for the afternoon, but have no bakers flour. But I do have yeast!
wendyblume said,
December 6, 2013 @ 3:04 pm
Yep, give it a try…