Warning: This post will be much longer and more picture heavy than usual. This is a monster post, actually, defeating the whole purpose of a weekend “tidbit.”
About once every 1 or 2 months I have a homemade pizza day. I’m a big fan of pizza and increasingly I seek more gourmet (and healthy, where possible) options. I admit I am becoming a snob since I have started making my own pizza – the taste of regular pizza chains simply does not compare to what you can make at home. Most pizza chains make me feel downright ornery lately. It’s okay for a quick fix, but not my first choice. The only exception I can think of is coal-fire pizza restaurants.
There’s of course a reason why most people don’t make homemade pizza, unfortunately. First is that it’s pretty cheap to get pizza from almost anywhere, even if the quality is piss poor. The second is pizza making can be very time consuming if you’re not doing mass production. It takes me 6 hours just to make a pie or two. Keep in mind though that I take my sweet time and 90% of the time I’m not actually doing anything but waiting for things to chill or for the dough to rise. The actual process of baking the pizza is short – about 15 minutes. I personally don’t mind all of this though, the process and the results are worth it.
I still haven’t perfected this. I still make at least one mistake every time, but with each mistake I get better. As someone once told me of one of the pizzas I made: “This thing is so good, it should be illegal.”
I start with making my pizza sauce the day before or the morning of. If I’m in a rush, I’ll let the ingredients simmer over low heat in a sauce pan so that the flavors become integrated. Other times I’ll just mix everything together and let it sit in a glass container in the fridge for a few hours. Either way, it’s important to let the sauce marinate. The picture below is all the ingredients I put in my sauce.
From left to right: (1) grated parmesan and romano cheese, (2) cayenne red pepper, (3) pesto, (4) anchovy paste, (5) garlic powder, (6) onion powder, (7) 6 oz. tomato paste, (8) honey, (9) marjoram, (10) ground pepper, (11) oregano, (12) salt, (13) crushed red peppers. I also add 6 to 8 oz. of water.
If you don’t have pesto, just use basil. I like using pesto in place of basil for many recipes because pesto IS basil but with a kick (it has pine nuts and other goodies in it!). If you’re too lazy to make a tomato-based pizza sauce at all, then just use all pesto with some grated cheese, crushed or powdered garlic, salt and pepper, but remember that a little pesto goes a long way. You don’t need to pile on as much pesto as you do with regular tomato sauce. You can also do half tomato paste and half basil, just add some crushed or powdered garlic, grated cheese, salt and pepper. This is especially great if you don’t have all the herbs and spices. You can also doctor up some store-brought pasta sauce.
There’s no perfect way to make a pizza sauce. I recommend you play around with ingredients until you find one that suits your taste. Again, the base of any pizza sauce is tomato paste/sauce and/or pesto, salt, pepper, and garlic. Then you just add whatever herbs and spices you want.
Combined, this will make two cups of sauce – enough for 2-3 regular sized pies, depending on how much sauce you like. You can also store the extra sauce: 2-3 weeks in the fridge and a couple of months in the freezer. If it’s been in the fridge or freezer, I would recommend heating it on low with a 1-2 spoon fulls of water so that it won’t be so gloppy and it will spread more evenly on the pizza.
Now on to the bread. Pizza bread is yeast bread and making yeast breads (in general) follow the same format. Yeast does two main things: 1) it gives yeast bread a distinctive flavor and 2) in the process of multiplying, it gives off waste in the form of gas bubbles which helps the bread rise and gives the bread it’s fluffy texture. When you bake the bread, it ends up killing the yeast, leaving behind the pockets of air formed by these gas bubbles.
First you will need to grow a culture of yeast. You can buy some active dry yeast from the baking section of any grocery store. This yeast is alive but it has been dried up so that they don’t reproduce, kind of like being put in stasis or being in hibernation. They sell dry active yeast in individual packets or in glass jars. Since I bake a lot, I just get the glass jar (as shown below). Most yeast bread recipes require one packet of active dry yeast, which is equivalent to 2 1/4 teaspoons.
In order to “wake up” the yeast up from its peaceful slumber, you need to add warm water (not hot!) to it. This pizza dough recipe requires that you add 3/4 cups of warm water to it. In order for the yeast to multiply, you need to feed it and yeast feeds on sugar or honey. So you will add about 1-2 tablespoons of sugar or honey to the water, mix it up a bit, then add 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast. As you can see below, the yeast has already started multiplying and releasing gas bubbles after about 4-5 minutes. This means that the conditions are good for growth (the water isn’t too hot and that I’ve added enough sugar). Another indication that this batch is a good batch is that it smells like beer.
The next picture was taken about 10 minutes from the start. You can see that there is a layer of foam bubbles on top of the mixture. I picked some up with my spoon and some of it is laying on the spoon’s surface. This batch is good to go for the next step. Or you can keep it there and the foam will just keep growing and growing : )
Next I added about two cups of flour and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I used to mix all of this with a spoon, but now I just use my stand mixer and the kneading attachment for this purpose. Keep in mind that I doubled this recipe because I was expecting guests. Otherwise, this mixture will be a lot smaller than it appears in the following pictures.
When it comes to mixing/kneading dough, the amount of flour that you use is not precise. This is what scares people off because it can get very messy. I remember the first few times I did this, I ended up with more dough between my fingers (and down the sink) instead of in the actual bread! But you really need to use your senses (sight and touch) to see if the dough is forming correctly.
Two cups is a guideline and a starting point. If you see that the dough is still too watery (the mixture is not sticking together) or if it IS mostly sticking together but it is still too sticky for you to handle with your hands, you add a little more flour (about 1/8 to 1/4 cup, eyeball it). In the picture below the mixture is not sticking together well. It’s also very wet although it doesn’t show well. I’ve already added a little more flour, so that is what’s in the bottom of the bowl.
If you see that the dough is getting a bit too dry — you can tell this if small chunks of dough is breaking off from the mass or if there is a lot of flour being left behind while you’re mixing it — add a little warm water (1-2 teaspoons). Keep mixing. Here it is sticking better but you can see in the bottom of the bowl that there is a lot of leftover flour and a lot of dry dough bits.
Keep doing this until you are able to comfortably pick up the dough with your hands without it sticking to your fingers and making a huge mess. This is perfect, and not much left in the bottom of the container.
If it helps, coat your hands with some flour before you pick the dough up. You are now going to move it to a cutting board that has been lightly coated with flour. Here, you will continue kneading it for a couple more minutes. Kneading is basically folding the dough and pressing it down so it is flat again, then repeating. Fold it 4-5 times to make sure it has a nice elastic texture.
The purpose of kneading is to strengthen the bonds within the bread by elongating it and making it more elastic. Why does the bread need this? Because 1) when you let the dough rise, the bonds/fibers within the bread will need to be able to contain the gas bubbles that the yeast produce within the dough and 2) when you bake the bread and the yeast die and the gas bubbles burst, the bread needs to be able to stand on its own. In a sense, kneading is like strength conditioning for the bread (and for my arms, haha). : P
The same process happens when you bake a cake or any yeast-less baked goods, these baked goods get their air bubbles without yeast. The only difference is you can’t knead a cake mixture. Instead you add leavener like baking soda or baking powder (which is baking soda plus an acid to nuetralize the bitter taste of the baking soda). Leavener helps these cake mixtures retain elasticity and strength. Yeast bread don’t need leaveners because you are able to knead them.
Whew! Back to my pizza dough. I like to make herbed bread, so whenever I get the dough flat, I add some oregano, marjoram, and basil before I fold it again. I repeat this about 3-4 times until I get some good coverage (the herb specks are evenly distributed around the dough).
When I am done kneading, I roll the dough into a ball and coat it with a little bit more flour before placing it in a large container. This is because after it’s finished rising it will get a little sticky again, and the flour helps make it easy to handle. I cover the bowl with a wet towel and keep the entire thing in a dark corner or inside one of the cabinets. Inside the oven works also, as long as it’s not turned on. Remember, yeast likes dark and slightly moist conditions.
I usually let the dough sit there and rise for about 2-5 hours (depending on how hungry I am or whether I completely forgot about it – and I have a few times). You can give the process a head start by heating the oven to for 1-2 minutes, turning it off, then letting the dough sit in there for 10 minutes. I’ve even heard of people putting the dough in the drying machine for 10-20 minutes, after they’ve finished drying clothes.
Keep in mind that the more you let it rise, the more fluffy the bread is going to get. Most recipes and bakers will tell you that your dough is finished rising when you make a dent in it and the dent doesn’t fill up again. But I don’t do all that. As far as I’m concerned 2-3 hours is good enough, if you knead it well. In the picture below, you will see how the dough has doubled in size after 3 hours.
Up until this point I have spent about 45 minutes making the sauce and kneading the dough. The yeast is doing the bulk of the work while I wreck havoc elsewhere.
When the dough is finished rising 2-5 hours later, you will take it out, knead it 2-3 more times and then start flattening it out on a pan, as flat as you can. There are many ways to do this. You can do it with a rolling pin. You can do it with your bare hands. Or you can spin it in the air like those acrobatic pizza people do. Since I haven’t figured out acrobatics, I stick with the rolling pin and pushing it down with my hands. LOL! Oh well, it gets the job done. : )
When you’ve got the dough flat on a pan, there are many things you can do. I’ll tell you what I do. I coat the dough with a light layer of olive oil or cooking spray and I’ll top it with another light layer of fine cornmeal. Then I put the pan in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour to make the dough harden up a bit.
One thing I would recommend: if you are flattening the dough on the same pan you are baking it in, put some parchment paper on the pan first. Otherwise, flatten the dough on the cutting board and then transfer it to the pan. This is easier said than done, particularly if you’re trying to get a thin crust. If you press the dough too hard directly onto the baking pan, it will be much harder to remove after it’s done baking. Or you could just learn pizza spinning acrobatics. Just a warning. Don’t ask me how I know. ; )
Here is one more optional step you can do (depending on how hungry or how much patience you have at this point). While you let the dough sit in the fridge, you can heat up another pan on the bottom rack of the oven at about 500 degrees F. When the dough in the fridge is done cooling you can transfer the dough to the heated pan and let it bake in the bottom layer (without any toppings) for about 4-5 minutes. What this does it help give it a stronger foundation to hold all of the toppings. This isn’t by any means mandatory. I often skip this step, but as a result my pizza bread ends up being thicker and softer.
If you decide to skip the step of heating another pan first and you just want to bake the dough on the pan its already on, you still need to bake the bread WITHOUT any sauce and toppings in the 500 degree oven for 3-4 minutes. This gives the bread a head start in baking, since it won’t take that long for the sauce and the toppings to heat up and melt.
After this point, you can start putting your sauce and toppings in. Put the sauce in first then start layering it however you like with cheese and other toppings. I usually prep my toppings while the dough is rising or while the dough is sitting in the fridge. Then you can put it back in the oven again for about 8 minutes at 500 degrees F. Keep your eye on it. I don’t like my crust to be too hard or brown so 8 minutes is more than enough, but your preferences might vary and your oven might get hotter or cooler than mine.
Personally, all I need now is a coal fire oven and my life will be complete. I can die happy.
Below is the result. This is cheese pizza with salami, bell peppers, and onions. Right after you take it out, you can top it with some grated parmesan or romano cheese (or both!). I don’t know about you, but now I’m starving!
Hope you enjoyed the post!
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