The Easy Guide to Making Pizza

The Easy Guide to Making Pizza Learn to Make Authentic Pizza at Home!

The Easy Guide to Making Pizza

Making your own pizza is faster, easier and far more straight forward than you first thought. Making pizza at home is the fun alternative to ordering, going out for, or cooking a frozen pizza. It’s surprisingly easy to make your own pizza base at home and it ensures what you’re eating is fresh, full of nutrients and cooked to your exacting tastes.

You can break down this pizza recipe into four easy stages:

The dough

The sauce

The toppings

The cooking

It’s looking far less daunting now isn’t it? This guide will walk you through the process of making a great pizza at home, and provide some resources for when you feel like pizza, but don’t have the time or effort to make your own.

How long’s it going to take? Preparation time: 40 mins

Cooking time: 15 mins

This is what you’d wait for a delivery, or just a little longer than it takes to heat up the oven to put something frozen in. It really is that easy. So let’s get started by preheating the oven to gas mark 8/250 degrees or however hot your oven can go as a hot oven will help crisp up the base.

The Easy Guide to Making Pizza

The recipe Chorizo, red pepper and chili pizza, finished with parmesan cheese and fresh basil.

Of course you can modify the toppings to your own taste, but I find the combination of meaty chorizo, sweet red peppers and spicy chilies the perfect comfort food. You can’t get anything as good as this from your local store. Trust me, this will taste better than anything you’ve had before.

You’ll need the following ingredients for this recipe. They’re all easy to find and they’re cheap too! These ingredients are enough for 1 really large pizza, or two individual sized ones.

The base 300g of strong bread flour

1tsp of instant dried yeast

1tsp of salt

1tsp of olive oil (plus a little extra for drizzling)

The sauce 125ml of passata (tomato sauce)

Some chopped up basil

1 crushed garlic clove

The toppings 125g of fresh mozzarella

Some parmesan shavings

Slices of chorizo (to your taste)

Half a red pepper

1 small chili

A sprinkle of fresh basil leaves

The Easy Guide to Making Pizza

Making the dough Making the dough is great fun. It’s an excuse to get messy and take your stress out when kneading it. The process doesn’t take long, but it’s important to keep the surface dry and floured so it doesn’t stick, otherwise there could be a pizza dough related disaster!

1. First start by mixing the 300g of strong bread flour with the 1tsp of salt and 1tsp of dried yeast. Use a wooden spoon to just lightly stir this dry mix to ensure the yeast and salt is spread evenly.

2.

Now create a small well in the mix and add in the 200ml of warm water. Use the wooden spoon to incorporate the water slowly until the dough forms a sticky ball. If you can immediately tell it is too dry or wet, add more flour or water as appropriate.

The Easy Guide to Making Pizza

3.

Take the dough out of the bowl and put it onto a floured surface and start kneading. There’s no real skill to this, so just get stuck in and put some effort into manipulating the dough. After 4 or 5 minutes it will be smooth and stretchy, and ready to roll out. Here you can leave it for 20 minutes to ‘proof’ if you want the base to bake a little fluffier. There is no need to wait if you prefer a thinner and crispier base.

4.

The mix is enough to make 2 fair sized pizzas, so split the ball into two parts and using a rolling pin, roll out the first ball into a pizza shaped base, making it as thin as possible. Keep adding flour too, as it will easily stick to the surface when being rolled.

5. Trim the base down to the size and shape you desire for baking, dependant on the baking tray you

want to use. From here you can start adding the toppings.

The Easy Guide to Making Pizza

Making the sauce Making this simple pizza base sauce literally takes a minute and it’s packed with flavor.

1. This part is easy. Simply mix the 125ml of passata with some finely chopped basil and some crushed garlic. Mix this up well and then liberally spoon it onto the base, smoothing it with the back of a spoon until the base is completely covered.

Adding the toppings This recipe centres around chorizo, red peppers and chilies, but you can use anything you fancy.

1. Tear the mozzarella ball into small strips or chunks and start positioning these over the base with the sauce. Remember the cheese will melt out so do not cluster these too closely together.

2. Add the chorizo, red peppers, chilies and some parmesan shavings to complete the pizza. You can drizzle a small amount of olive oil over this now before it goes in the oven. It looks like it is taking shape now, and trust me, you’ll be enjoying this pizza in just a few moments!

The Easy Guide to Making Pizza

Cooking the pizza

1. A hot oven cooks pizza dough well, so ensure your oven is as hot as it will go. Put the pizza in the oven and leave it for around 10 minutes. The cooking time is surprisingly fast when your oven is hot, and because everything is fresh it cooks a lot quicker. Keep an eye on the pizza in the oven and take it out when the crust starts to brown.

All done! Just leave the pizza for a couple of minutes to settle and then tuck in to this crisp, healthy, fresh and tasty pizza that you can take all the credit for. Don’t forget that there’s some left over ingredients for the second base so you have a go at another selection of toppings or chill the dough to use another day.

Resources I hope this guide has shown how easy it is to make your own pizza, and you’ve been inspired to give it a go. If you’re still not convinced then there are a number of other options. You can order pizza delivery online or just suppress your hunger. Here are some great resources for learning more about pizza, or getting an online order in:

The History of Pizza

Read about the history of pizza on Wikipedia.

Just-Eat Pizza Delivery

Order pizza delivery online from a huge choice of places near you. Just search your postcode to view all the menus in your area.

London’s Best Pizza Restaurants

Time Out Magazine look at some of the best restaurants serving pizza in London.

Happy pizza making!