Recipe: Pizza at home

Pizza, simply homemade with quality

You'll never want to buy out again!

It takes less time to make great pizza than you might think.

Pizza, the world's favourite food, my favourite food. Somehow a slice of bread coated in tomato and other toppings has become a worldwide sensation. I’ve been asked that question before, “If you could only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?” And my answer is pizza.

Although simple, the wealth of combinations makes for a potentially constantly changing dish. I've got a few favourites, my favourites being Tarragon and Mushroom, and Napoli, which I first tried in Zurich, Switzerland.

You're here to learn how to make pizza, and luckily, it's quite easy. You might be questioning to yourself why you've paid so much money for pizza whilst you're out, I mean if it's easy why am I paying so much? The simple reason is convenience, the method is simple, the ingredients are generally cheap, the only thing that you are not having to invest is time.

The thing is, once you know how to make it yourself, you’ll realise that there isn't a great time commitment either. While professional pizza chefs may cringe, this method is entirely suitable for homemade pizza. It can take a long time to make pizza dough if you are leaving it to prove for long periods of time, some restaurants will do this, but for you at home it's not necessary. There are simple methods to put an extra bit of puff into the crust at home overnight or longer, but for this method we’ll be making the dough a few hours in advance of when we want to use it, and you will still get fantastic results.

Often when I read online that people say they make something all the time, I typically don't believe them when they have a wealth of recipes published, however in this case I use this a lot, I'm making pizzas at least monthly, often more frequently, I use this method every time, and they turn out very amazingly. I don't want to make a promise to you that this will work for you because all sorts of weird things happen when we're cooking, but whatever is one step short of promise that's what I'll say to the reliability of this recipe.

With an aside the I don’t dine out much, I can genuinely say that my pizzas are my second favourite I’ve every had in my tenure on this earth, second only to a restaurant in Zurich called Pizza Way, and as much as I love that place it’s a long and expensive trip for dinner. One of my two favourite pizza toppings I discovered in that restaurant, the Napoli.

Now that you’re drooling over the thought of delicious pizza in literally a couple of hours, or less if you crack on with it, lets dive into what you need to know, yes pun intended.

Ingredients

Simply put, pizza is bread, there aren't many ingredients involved. As we've already explored, there are a few ways to make pizzas, however, there aren't that many. Most of the recipes that you will see will revolve around something very similar, aside from the weird TikTok things that you find claiming to be a pizza made of cauliflower or egg or something else bizarre.

I only make two types of pizza, the recipe that I am about to tell you, or another that I learned in a cookbook called ‘My First Cookbook’, let's just say a very long time ago and it was indeed my first cookbook. We may explore this other method at some point but for now we'll stick to the classic. Most pizzas served in restaurants are variations of this recipe, this has just been simplified for the home cook and takes you back to basics.

We need five ingredients for the dough: flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and water. We’re going to discuss them here in a little more detail.

Flour

Strong white bread flour is a must. We want strong flour for the gluten, you might hear gluten and associate it with rise when it comes to a loaf or bread, but we still need it here. Firstly, we do want some rise in pizza dough, this is your puffy and crisp crust, the second reason is the gluten provides stretch, which allows us to go thin and still hold content. An added benefit of the high gluten content is the added chew that you find in a traditional pizza.

If you go digging around the internet, books, or find an Italian pizzaioli, they will tell you that 00 Caputo is required, they aren’t wrong in that it will make for a great base, but there are so many other flours, often cheaper that will produce as good results. Up until recently, I would’ve told you that standard strong flour will work, and its still true, but I’ve moved onto extra strong Canadian flour. As I already said, you will great dough with the standard strong bread flour from any supermarket, so feel free to use that with no regrets, I only stumbled across using extra strong flour when during a certain pandemic flour was scarce. I now buy my flour off amazon, but I use a lot of it and only costs marginally more than the standard stuff, I find there’s an added softness, and stretch, but not to the extent that you need worry about it; there’s a difference, but its small.

Flour, being the primary ingredient, could warrant its own discussion, but for almost all your bread baking if your flour is strong white, it’ll work just fine, just don’t use it for cakes unless you like them chewy.

Yeast

There are typically two types of yeast readily available in stores: instant or quick yeast, and active yeast. For this recipe, we're using instant yeast. I buy small tubs of yeast from the supermarket; you can pick them up online too. If you’re buying sachets, in the K they come in 7-gram packets, one of these will work for this recipe.

If you have dry active yeast, don't worry, you can still use it. Instead of adding all the ingredients at once, put the warm water, sugar, and yeast in a separate bowl or jug for ten minutes to activate the yeast. Combine it with the flour when you're ready to mix.

Sugar

We need food to go about our business, and so does the yeast. The purpose of yeast in baking, and brewing, is that it respires much like any of the cells in your own body. When is munches on the food you give the yeast, gas is released and that’s what gives you rise, and alcohol too, sometimes your dough will smell like beer if you let it prove long enough, this isn’t a bad thing, and feel free to experiment with multiple proves or leaving it for longer.

Salt

You’ll notice that salt is the ingredient used the least, good old table salt will be fine, if you use anything pricier you really won’t see or taste any difference here. The salt serves two purposes, flavour as in most places across cooking, and that it slows the fermentation process, we want rise not a balloon.

A very important note, that is in the recipe too, when you’re putting the salt into the bowl don’t let it touch the yeast. Salt as you probably know absorbs moisture, and the yeast are little organisms, you’ll kill them off before the get to do their stuff. Once everything is mixed up but whilst its all dry and in situ, don’t let them hang out together.

Water

The final ingredient is fortunately the simplest, water, we want it warm, but tap water will suffice.

A common question is about water temperature. We're looking for warm water, which is admittedly a bit vague. Yeast works optimally at around 38°C (100°F); it will work at a lower temperature but will take more time. What you want to avoid is hot water, which can kill the yeast.

A fool proof method for getting your warm water is 100ml of boiled water mixed with 200ml of tap water—basically, two parts cold to one part hot. If it's cooler, don't worry; it'll take a bit longer to prove.

Troubleshooting

Helping you troubleshoot problems is a challenge with one-way online communication, but I'll cover a couple of issues I've seen in past baking projects, both my own and others'.

Rise

In the instructions below, I've provided images to guide you on the amount of rise you should expect to see, but keep in mind that proving times will vary more due to the environment than other factors. People sometimes follow a recipe exactly and still don't get the desired results, often due to proving times. Many recipes call a one-hour prove, as you'll see below as well. However, this assumes a warm environment—again, a vague term. In this case, "warm" means room temperature, around 23-25°C (73-77°F). If it's cooler, the prove will take longer. Most instructions you find will tell you to wait until the dough has doubled in size because size is a better indicator than time, without a controlled environment. A rule of thumb I've found is that if it's doubled in size, you'll know. If you're unsure, add half an hour. If it's clearly not doubled, give it another hour. If it still hasn't risen, your yeast might be old. To test your yeast, mix a bit with a teaspoon of sugar in warm water. It should create foam in five to ten minutes.

Frustration

If for some reason things aren't going your way, take a step back. Cooking should be enjoyable for the process and the results. If at least one of those applies, you're doing fine. Many things in life are out of your control, and sometimes mistakes happen—just chill.

Recheck the ingredients list; it's not uncommon to forget an ingredient. Did you let the bread prove long enough? Did you preheat the oven? Are your ingredients still within their expiration dates?

In this scenario, the issue is typically under your control. There are few instances, if any, where a bread roll is so urgent that it's worth stressing over. Relax, grab a drink, come back—it's only a couple of hours in total. If you’ve promised pizza, either have another go, or buy some. There’s enough going wrong in the world to get worked up over some dough.

Storage

Although intended to be used the same day, you can store the dough in the fridge for a few days, in fact it gets a little crispier with the longer but slow ferment. Make sure the container is sealed so that it doesn’t form a skin, it’s not the end of the world if it does.

If storing in the fridge, I’d leave it out for half an hour before using, as the gluten will be all tightened up from the cold.

The Recipe

Ingredients List

• 500 grams of Strong White Flour
• 300 millilitres of Warm Water (tip: millilitres of water weigh the same in grams)
• 2 tsp of yeast
• 2 tsp of sugar (caster or granulated)
• 1 tsp of salt
• Semolina or flour for dusting surface (preferably semolina)

Instructions

1. Add the flour to a large mixing bowl, preferably the bowl of a stand mixer, though it's not required.

2. Next, add the yeast, sugar, and salt to the bowl, but keep the salt separate from the yeast on the other side of the bowl for now.
3. Add the warm water, as discussed earlier a fool proof way to make warm water if two parts cold to one hot.
4. Knead the mixture using a dough hook (speed 2 on a KitchenAid) for about 7 minutes or knead by hand on a lightly floured work surface for 10 minutes. When the kneading is done, the dough will be smooth and will spring back slightly when poked with a finger.
5. Leave the bowl in the warmest place available to rest for an hour, or until doubled in size. This might take longer depending on the ambient temperature.
6. You’ve got a choice here, cut into two or three pieces, three if you want a thin and crispy base, or two if you want a bit more substance to the dough.
   
   

7. Dust the work surface with a generous amount of semolina this will stop the dough sticking, if you don’t have semolina, flour will have a similar effect.
8. Rolling out the dough, we have two approaches:
1. You can either go for a rolling pin, keep that quiet, but you’re making it at home, so you do you.
2. Flatten the dough a bit, then push from the centre outwards with your fingers, rotating the dough. You’re pushing the aerated dough to the edges. Next, you’ll want to stretch the dough which can be done either picking the dough up and draping it across two fists and pulling then rotating the dough, or by keeping it on the surface and lightly placing one hand on the centre to keep the pizza in place whilst the other hand stretches it out, rotating as you go.

9. I’m not telling you what toppings to use as this is a personal thing, but make sure they’re ready to go, we don’t want to rush but still work quickly. You want things that don’t take long to cook or cut thinly. I’d recommend precooking mushrooms, as they tend to get a bit wet.
10. Preheat a large frying pan to a high, and the grill, again high.
11. When hot place the dough into the pan and add your sauce and toppings.
12. You’ll only need a few minutes to cook on the hob assuming, it was preheated fully, you can tell this stage is done either by smelling a hint of burning, yes really, we’re simulating a wood fired oven. You can also peek with a spatula, if its darkened, you’re good to move on.
13. Place the pan under the grill, I think it might be broiler in America, and a couple of minutes later you are done, keep an eye on it as it cooks quickly.
14. Enjoy your delicious homemade pizza!

Ciao for now! 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this pizza tutorial, you’ll become very popular with your friends and family!

Making pizzas is very simple, and the only bit that can catch you sideways is stretching out the dough, which just takes practise. The fundamental flaw of a blog highlights itself here as all that can be provided is text and the odd image. I really hope that you give this ago and love the results as much as I do.

If you’re wondering why we’re using the stove and grill rather than the oven, the results are far more reliable and have a more searing contact heat rather than an ambient cooking. This method gives both a charred effect from underneath, and intense heat from above. I won’t take credit for the method of cooking, I learnt it from Pizza Pilgrims, via the Sorted Food YouTube channel and I’ve never looked back.

The next time someone suggests ordering takeaway pizza, make this instead, it’ll save you a fortune, and by the time people would’ve finished bickering over toppings, quicker too.