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How To Make Pizza

Are you wondering how to make pizza at home?

The good news is there are a variety of different ways to make it; completely from scratch where you make your own pizza dough and pizza sauce, or, you can buy a pizza base and assemble everything together with your favourite pizza toppings.

Follow our step by step guide to making a pizza at home!

How To Make Pizza – What You Need

Pizza Base

You have a variety of options when it comes to the pizza base;

  • Buy a pizza base from the supermarket
  • Buy ready-made fresh pizza dough – either from a supermarket or online from companies like Ooni
  • Make pizza dough from scratch
  • Make a pizza in a bread maker

There are plenty of different types of pizza bases that you can make, from traditional classic styles like Neapolitan to alternatives like sourdough pizza and simple 2 ingredient pizza dough.

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Top Tips For The Perfect Pizza

If you are not using a bread machine to make your dough make sure you knead it until it is really smooth. If you don’t knead it for long enough the base won’t rise at all and you’ll be left with a super flat pizza.

Save time by doubling or tripling up with your dough. By making dough in batches you can store it for future use. Fresh dough can be stored in the fridge for 3 or 4 days, or in the freezer for up to a month. In fact, the dough can taste nicer when it has time to chill out in the fridge allowing the taste to develop.

Always sift the flour to allow plenty of air into the dough. It will make the base lighter, and the crusts more crisp.

Once your pizza has finished cooking cool it down on a wire rack for a few minutes before cutting it. It will be easier to cut and the crust will be much crispier.

Do you like a crispy crust? If you are baking in the oven (rather than using the No Bake Pizza Recipe below), cook it on a preheated pizza stone first. A pizza stone works by holding lots of heat and then quickly releasing it as the pizza bakes. The hotter a pizza gets, the crispier (and tastier) the base will be.

On the subject of heat, bake your pizza on the hottest temperature you can.

Choose what toppings you want, but try not to put too many on – you’ll have to  cook your pizza for too long to make sure they are cooked through.

Chopped up fresh herbs taste lovely on a pizza.


Making The Perfect Dough

piiza dough

The best bit of advice for making great pizza dough is to keep it simple.

Bread Maker Pizza Dough Recipe

Making pizza dough in a bread maker is possible in most machines. It cuts out the manual effort needed to knead the dough by hand and significantly reduces the wait time of allowing it to rise.

Double check the instructions for your bread maker but they are usually quite similar.

Ingredients

1/2 tsp yeast

300g strong white flour

1tbsp olive oil

1tsp salt

170ml water

Method

Once the bread maker has finished it’s pizza dough program you will need to divide it up into pizza bases, either 1 large one or 2 smaller ones. Leave them on a greased baking tray in a warm place to prove until it has doubled in size. It should take around 20 minutes.


 Hand Made Pizza Dough Recipe

You can double, or even triple, up on this recipe and store some in the fridge or freezer for another time.

Ingredients

1 1/2 tsp dried yeast

1tsp sugar

2tbsp olive oil

250ml warm water

375g strong plain flour

Method

  1. Mix the yeast with 3tbsp water. Put it to one side for about 5 to 10 minutes.
  2. Sift the flour into a bowl.
  3. Add the sugar.
  4. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast, water, and oil.
  5. Mix together using your hands.
  6. On a clean counter top or work surface sprinkle some flour.
  7. Knead the dough for 10 minutes until it has a smooth texture and is elastic. Put the dough in a large bowl and cover with cling film. Place the bowl in a warm place, like an airing cupboard or by a radiator. Leave it there until it has doubled in size, usually 60 to 90 minutes, or overnight in a fridge.

You can put passata or chopped tomatoes on your pizza, or a mix of both, for the tomato base. Since Pizza Express started selling their own passata in the supermarkets we’ve been using that – it tastes perfect.

What are your favourite pizza toppings? Write in the comments and let me know!

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