How to make homemade pizza

Making pizza at home is one of those scary things out of sheer ignorance. Preparing homemade pizza is not as difficult as one might imagine if some issues that we are going to tell you about in this article are taken into account. And the result is fantastic.

Making an excellent pizza at home requires taking care of two aspects: the utensils and the method . And for both we are going to advise you the best options.

The ideal ingredients for pizza dough

The pizza dough, like that of any simple bread, does not have more than a few ingredients: flour, water, salt and baker's yeast ; there are those who like to add some olive oil as well. Despite what they say, use strong flour : it gives the dough a binder that allows it to stretch without breaking and makes it possible for it to remain airy when baking.

Neither the water nor the salt admit much variation and as for the yeast, it can be fresh or dry, but always from the bakery , never the Royal type, be careful. That there are those who are confused.

Basic Pizza Recipe

For 4 small pizzas:

• 300g of strong flour
• 200g of water
• 5g of freeze-dried baker's yeast (15g of fresh yeast)
• 6g of salt
• 20g of good olive oil (optional)

the kneading

I have good news for you: it is not essential to knead to get a good pizza . And I'm not saying it, master Ibán Yarza says it in his book Pan Casero , where you can find the complete recipe for pizza without kneading.

Of course, making pizza without kneading requires a bit of patience or planning or both, because we will have to gather the ingredients and let the dough rest in the fridge for up to two days.

Of course we can always knead by hand with patience and dedication, but a fairly hydrated dough like this and with a lot of gluten is difficult, I won't deny it. When kneading by hand, I also advise you to knead in 2-3 minute intervals with 10 minute rests in between. The rests work miracles.

On the other hand, if what we want is to have a kneaded dough and ready to ferment quickly, we remind you that you can always use a bread maker or a kneading robot with a dough hook.

A good kneading, or a prolonged rest in its absence, is essential so that the dough has structure, the crumb comes out perfectly and the crust is crunchy.

After kneading or resting, you have to divide the dough into as many portions as you want and stretch them, which you can do by hand or with a rolling pin . We let the dough rest once stretched and we only have to spread them with a good fried tomato or passata , add the cheese and some other little thing that motivates us.

The Best Homemade Pizza Baking Tools

We have already talked about the ingredients and the dough, so let's go with the method and the utensils to bake a pizza . Because now that we have prepared an excellent dough, we cannot spoil it with mediocre cooking.

The fundamental thing to get a well-raised pizza with a crispy base is to put the oven at full speed (at least 250º if your oven has it) and then use a pizza base that conducts heat well.

Is a pizza base essential ? Unless you have a Super Mega Oven of Death, which is often not the case with home ovens, using a good base makes all the difference.

A perforated non-stick pizza crust like Le Creuset's allows hot air to reach the bottom of the pizza perfectly and gives very good results. Ceramic bases like Emile Henry's transmit heat wonderfully and an extraordinary crust is achieved by pre-heating this base in the oven, while we prepare the pizza to put it in. They also serve to present the pizza on the table because they keep the heat and do not scratch if we cut on them.

Finish: herbs and a good pizza oil

I particularly like to add the herbs, especially if they are fresh, towards the end of cooking or directly when taking the pizza out of the oven , so that they do not burn. It is also a very good idea to add a spicy touch with a special olive oil for pizza or you can create your aromatic oils with Luigi Bormioli's seasoning oilers .

And now we only have to cut our homemade pizza with a good cutter and... enjoy.

La Tourangelle spicy oil for pizza , Luigi Bormioli seasoning oilers , T&G rustic pizza peel and WMF pizza cutter

Recipes to inspire you

You can find other recipes to inspire you on our blog:

• Pizza with grilled aubergines, ham, mozzarella and pesto sauce
• homemade caprese pizza
• Cheese, bacon and arugula pizza
• carbonara pizza
• Mushroom, tomato and blue cheese calzone

Post updated in July 2018