Coco’s garlic bread

Summer

Whenever we make pizzas and bake them in the wood oven, my daughter Coco likes to make these garlic breads as well. They are her speciality and they’re very good. Sometimes she pushes the boat out and covers them with grated Cheddar too. For this recipe, you will need to divide the risen pizza dough into four before shaping into balls.

Makes 4 large garlic breads

Ingredients

2 quantities pizza dough
Fine polenta or semolina, for dusting
4 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the garlicky butter

8 garlic cloves, peeled
180g unsalted butter, softened
A bunch of parsley, leaves picked and chopped

Method

Pre-fire your wood oven. It should be about 350°C when you come to bake.

For the garlicky butter, grate the garlic with a fine grater such as a Microplane, or crush it to a coarse paste. Mix with the butter, parsley and some salt and pepper.

Sprinkle your work surface with a little semolina or polenta. Place one ball of dough on the surface and stretch it out by hand to a round, 25–30cm in diameter, leaving a ridge around the edge which will puff up nicely in the oven. Alternatively, use a rolling pin. Repeat with the other three pieces of dough.

Dust a pizza peel with more polenta or semolina (if you don’t have a peel, an upside-down baking tray is a good substitute). Transfer one piece of dough to it.

Spread a quarter of the garlicky butter over the dough and finish with a grinding of black pepper and some thyme leaves. Slide the dough into the wood oven and keep an eye on it. It will need 2–5 minutes to turn golden brown and crisp on the base, depending on the heat. Repeat with the remaining dough and garlic butter.

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