No-knead pizza dough baked as pizza bread

For one pizza: put half a cup of water in a container with the sugar and active dry yeast.

Add about a teaspoon of olive oil, half a teaspoon of kosher salt and 150 g of bread flour.

Stir with a spoon until all the flour is wet; no kneading. The most bread flour that can be stirred in with a spoon gives the right hydration for no-knead pizza dough.

Cover and refrigerate for a slow, cold rise.

Take the dough out, fold it a few times, oil the container and return the dough to the fridge for at least a day, up to a week or more; these were baked at five days old.

Gently pull the dough out without deflating it, turn it bubbly side up, smear with olive oil and top with black pepper, coarse salt and garlic powder.

Bake at maximum heat on a hot stone or steel, four at a time.

Variation: double sugar (a full teaspoon) gives a gassier, very sticky dough and a moist, dense, cakey interior; no sugar gives a fluffier, chewier, more bready result.

Variation: no oil gives a stickier raw dough that bakes lighter and needs another minute or two; double oil gives a softer dough, a very crispy bottom and a tender, yielding crumb.

Variation: a quarter teaspoon of yeast gives a feeble rise and a gummy bottom layer; no yeast does not rise in the fridge and tastes of raw flour.

Variation: double yeast (a full teaspoon) gives a stickier, more delicate dough with a strongly yeasty, sour flavour; too much yeast tears when stretched thin, so reserve it for thick crust.