I have to admit to being a bit of a pizza nerd and I've spent years trying to reproduce at home the kind of pizzas you get in good pizzerias in Italy (and at Salvo's in Leeds). It mainly comes down to having the right flour and the right oven. I make a soft dough using Italian '00' flour with about 15% semolina flour added (I bring this back in my luggage from trips to Florence but have now discovered Marino flours from Bakery Bits in the UK), fast acting dried yeast, a little salt and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (not traditional but it helps to shape the dough). I make the dough in an old Kenwood mixer, leave it to double in size then tip it out, gentle knock it back, form into portion-sized balls and leave to rest for 20 minutes. The hardest part is shaping the pizzas. It has to be done by hand to get it thin in the middle with a raised edge and I learnt the technique from watching the chefs at the pizza counter upstairs in the Mercator Centrale in Florence. It takes a bit of practice and a liberal dusting of semolina flour. For topping, I use a good quality passata and some decent Italian mozzarella, plus whatever takes your fancy (I love anchovies, capers, olives and fresh basil). I do sometimes use my sourdough bread dough but coordinating the rising and cooking of bread and pizzas can be something of a challenge.

For cooking, a proper pizza oven that reaches at least 350˚C is essential – domestic ovens won't give the right consistency. To this end, I've built a wood-fired oven from an oil drum outside and bought a small professional electric pizza oven for inside, which sits in the boiler cupboard. Cooking takes about 2 minutes in the wood oven and 3 to 4 in the electric oven. I doubt if many people will want to go to these lengths, but I do get great pizzas.