I’ve been making my own pizza for the past 15 years or so. It has been a staple of my home cooking routine and I love making it even more that I love eating it, which says a lot.
Pizza is one of the easiest meals that I make for dinner. It is a great place to use up leftovers and other small bits of food. And, while your pizza cooks, you can do most of the kitchen cleanup so that you can sit down, enjoy your meal and not worry about leaving the mess for later. There is nothing I dislike more than an easy meal to make that is a pain to cleanup.
I make my own dough and I will mention the recipe later, but you can buy pizza dough at just about any grocery store. I know it is at Trader Joes and Winco has it here on the west coast. If you have never bought it before, it is usually located near the cheese and packaged lunchmeat in a refrigerated case. You might need to ask, there isn’t any pizza dough section. It is usually sold in plastic bags.
If you want to go really easy, buy the dough, but if you want to try your hand at making it, it is pretty easy too. You do need to make it ahead of time. To make a great pizza dough, you will want to make it the day before and then let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. You can get easily get away with making it in the afternoon, but it needs to rise for about an hour after mixing.
Pizza Dough Recipe
Here are the basics, 1 teaspoon yeast, ¾ cup water, 2 cups all purpose or bread flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon oil. If you have a stand mixer with a dough attachment, put everything in the bowl, and mix with the dough hook for 12-14 minutes. Alternatively, you can mix everything in a bowl then knead it on the counter for about 8-10 minutes. Kneading by hand is actually more effective that the machine, which is why the time is less. If you have a food processor, you can mix it together with the blade, but it will only take about 1-2 minutes. I don’t use my food processor, because I hate washing it, but you can use it if you want. If your dough is too sticky to handle, use a little extra flour.
This recipe will make one regular sized pizza, about 12-14 inches. If you want two pizzas, double the recipe.
If you make the crust the day before, put some olive oil in a Ziploc bag and then put the dough in and put the bag of dough in the fridge.
If you make the crust the same day, make it an hour ahead, cover it and leave it at room temperature.
If you made the dough ahead or bought store bought dough, take it out of the fridge about an hour before you want to make your pizza. While the dough warms up, prepare your toppings.
This is the creative part of the process. You can use any kind of cheese and any kind of meat or vegetables. If there was one thing the California Pizza Kitchen taught us, it is that anything can go on top of a pizza.
I don’t usually use marinara sauce anymore, but if you have it you can. Don’t buy special pizza sauce, just use a little bit of regular spaghetti sauce. I do like to make a garlic oil and brush it on the dough before topping. I have some spring garlic on hand, but even a very light sprinkle of garlic powder can add a lot flavor and it goes well with the cheese.
One of my tricks to pizza is to use fewer toppings as apposed to more. This might be because I think the best part of a pizza is the crust. You will get to experiment to see what works for you.
If you are experienced using a pizza stone and pizza peel, to slide the pizza on the stone, go for it, but you can make a fine pizza, on a pan.
Roll the dough into a ball on the counter top, and then turn on your oven to 425 degrees. Let the dough rest for about 10 minutes before you start stretching it out. Then use your hands to press the dough into a disk, and gently pick it up and stretch out any thick spots. Lightly smear 1 tablespoon of oil onto the pan, if you are using it, and put the dough on the pan and spread it out a little more. You might notice that the dough wants to spring back to where it started. Let it rest for 5 minutes before pushing it out, if you want to make a bigger pizza with a thinner crust.
Start putting on your toppings. Grated mozzarella cheese and pepperoni are fine toppings. Then bake the pizza at 425 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. You want to have a lightly browned crust and bubbly cheese. I will admit that this is harder that it sounds, and the only way to get better is to practice. But won’t you enjoy eating all of those practice pizzas.
This is my favorite pizza with bacon, eggs, potato and rosemary. This looks a mess with the eggs, but I have been trying to figure out how to get them cooked without the yolks being hard.