| Prep Time | 2 hours, including proofing time |
| Cook Time | 25 minutes |
| Passive Time | 1 hour |
| Servings |
personal pizzas
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- 31/4 + 1/4 cups all purpose flour can substitute with whole wheat; extra flour is for dusting
- 1 packet active/instant dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar or honey
- 1 cup warm water not hot, not cold, but warm enough for the yeast to develop
- 1 medium red onion
- 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes I use the kind packed in oil, you may experiment with dry ones
- 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes
- 1 cup goat cheese
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder optional; can also use other flavorings such as italian spices, oregano, thyme, dried basil etc. to flavor the crust
- 1/4 cup Extra virgin olive oil to oil the bowl, and to add in the dough
- 1 cup pesto sauce I made pesto with half cup arugula and half cup basil, 1/2 cup pine nuts, extra virgin olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic, salt; can use store bought
- Pizza pan Pizza stone works really well For crispier pizza, use a pan that has holes
- Traditional Oven to bake
Ingredients
Special Equipment
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- Take a deep bowl, and stir the sugar or honey into the warm water, and dissolve it completely
- Slowly add the yeast, mixing it until the yeast dissolves completely
- Set it aside in a warm area, to let the yeast develop; it will be activated and look all bubbly and frothy
- Choose a surface to work freely and dump the 3 1/4 cups of flour; I used to always make the dough in a deep, wide bowl, but learned to do this in Florence, and wanted to try it. I must admit, it was messy. But it allowed me to work more comfortably with the flour.
- Make a well in the center of the flour, and pour the yeast mixture in it; add salt; as you can see in the video, I started this on my roti stone, and transferred it to the counter top when it became too hard to work on. I also didn't use all the water for proofing the yeast, and used the remaining water as I made the dough.
- This is the part that I am not very good at and discarded the photos/videos of it. The pizza chef in Florence taught us to gently fold in the flour into the well, without breaking the dam; I always broke the dam, and the water got everywhere; but if you do it right, the flour and the yeast mixture should come together in a mass of dough fairly quickly
- Work on this dough for about 8-10 minutes, kneading it really well (see video); add a bit of the oil in the dough as you work; the technique I learned in Florence was to turn the dough a quarter, push it away with the palm, and fold it in. Lather, rinse, repeat 😉
- Oil a bowl and keep the dough in it in a warm place, covered with a cloth for about an hour. The yeast will do its magic and the dough should double in size.
- After an hour, check the dough by making an indent of about 2 inches in it with two fingers. If the intent remains, your dough is doubled and ready!
- Now would be a good time to preheat the oven to 425 deg Fahrenheit, before you start working on the dough to make the pies
- Break the dough into 4 or 2 depending on how many pizzas you would like. We made 4, one for each. They are the size of personal pizzas
- Knead each of the pieces into a smooth ball; the pizza teacher in Florence really made sure we did this, so the pizza is smooth (Video included)
- Stretching the dough: You may hand stretch or roll it out to desired size and shape; the thing I learned from the pizza school in Florence is to keep the edge a little raised for a pro-looking and good pizza; this was easier to do by hand-stretching the pizza more than rolling it out (Video included)
- Get the toppings chopped and ready - we used sun-dried tomatoes, red onions, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes; get creative with toppings
- Spread each of the pizza crusts with a base of your choice - we chose pesto for ours, topped with the veggies
- Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes; definitely take it out if it starts smoking 😉 There are some schools of thought that bake the crust first for 10 minutes, then add the base and the toppings; I have always done it all together. Sometimes I might hold the cheese and add it for the last 10 minutes of the baking time so it doesn't burn. This depends on the oven mostly.
- Pop a movie in, get your beer/soda and enjoy hot pizza!
Pizza making is an art more than a science. A lot depends on the flour, the yeast, the gluten content, and the oven's temperament. So, don't be discouraged if the pizza doesn't turn out looking like a Domino's commercial model. With practice and little tweaks, it always turns out better than any restaurant pizzas.
My pizzas this time took an extra 5 minutes of baking.
In the class in Florence, they used a very hot oven (I believe the temp was 700 something), and the pizzas were done in 3 minutes!
Hope you have fun making pizzas with your family/kids!
Techniques/Source:
I used a couple of techniques I learned in making/kneading the dough, and stretching the dough for the crust, along with my tried and trusted recipe from the following book I have used for ages.
Recipe Source:
The 50 Best Pizzas In The World by Honey and Larry Zisman
(I have had/used this book since early 2000s, and it's never disappointed me).
Update:
I tried baking at a higher temperature today. I heated the oven to 500 degrees farenheit, with the pizza stone in the oven. I then stuck the pizza with the toppings all except cheese (pesto, onions, sundried tomatoes) for about 4 minutes, slid it out, added the goat cheese, and baked for 3 more minutes. The result was a perfect, perfectly crisp crust, somewhat soft/chewy middle. The pizzerias bake at a much higher temperature for a few minutes.
Also, I learned and used a new technique to hand stretch - hold the dough ball at the top, and start rotating like a wheel, stretching the circumference slowly, until you get to the desired size. No rolling pin!