If you, like me, grew up believing that a pizza made from scratch came out of a Chef Boyardee box, then you, like me, May have a few things to learn about the art of crafting a homemade pizza. With an appropriate recipe that eliminates the kneading process and allows you to have dough at the ready, homemade pizzas can open up a whole new culinary world ripe for creativity.
Come on this journey. Make your own crust. I promise you that this recipe is foolproof, and you really ought to know every ingredient that goes into your food anyhow. I challenge you to find a pre-made pizza crust made with just yeast, flour, water, and salt. You are likely, instead, to get a bunch of preservatives and ingredients you cannot pronounce. Enter the homemade crust! Be brave. You really might surprise yourself, and making dough can be fun (especially with no kneading required.)
The Recipe
3 1/2 c. warm water
1 Tbsp. yeast
2 tsp. salt
7 c. flour
Add the yeast and the salt to warm water. I have no idea how many packets 1 Tbsp. is… if you have packets, pour them into a tablespoon and then buy yourself a pound of yeast… you are going to need it. Then add the flour in a container with a lid that can be placed on loosely. (A bread bucket is ideal if you have one). Mix just until combined, making sure to incorporate all the flour, but you should not over-mix it. The dough should be pliable enough to take the shape of the container. It should be loose but not wet. Let it rise on the counter for a few hours, and then refrigerate it for at least a few more before you use it. Overnight is better. Two days is better still. Do not EVER punch down or knead the dough.
Making and Baking
On pizza day, preheat the oven to 425 or 450 degrees (either will work, as will 500 degrees, but I think everything smokes too much at 500, and 450 does just as well. Put your pizza stone on a low rack in the oven to preheat (mine literally lives there through cakes and brussel sprouts and lasagnas). Get your upper rack up high and out of the way. If you don’t have a pizza stone, buy one. You can use a pizza pan or a sheet cake pan, but don’t. Trust me. Just go buy the pizza stone. I’m sure someone you know is having a Pampered Chef party where you feel obligated to tithe, so just bite the bullet and buy one. And then get yourself a wooden pizza peel. Mine is cherry, and I love it.
Reach into your dough bucket and pull up a large handful of dough the size of a grapefruit, and cut it off. Turning the ball of dough in a circle by quarter turns, gently stretch the dough down around itself. This should be a quick process that stops when the ball is rounded and the top is smooth. Don’t worry if it’s not pretty on the bottom, you are about to fix that with a rolling pin. Flour your countertop, and roll out the dough to between ⅛ and ¼” thick. It will want to shrink when you lift the rolling pin, so if it sticks to the counter a little that is probably a good thing. You can also try tossing the dough in the air. (Italian music and red wine both build courage in this regard). If you choose to toss it, then keep the dough on your knuckles, and be sure to take off your rings so you do not snag it. After the dough is a few days old it becomes more elastic and easier to stretch and roll but increasingly harder to get off the peel and into the hot oven quickly and without losing toppings.
Liberally sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel. Build your pizza right on the peel, giving it a gentle shake every now and then to make sure that it still moves on the peel, since you need it to slide off of the peel and onto the pizza stone. Work quickly with cold dough and precut toppings. If you don’t know what mise en place means, now is a good time to learn. Essentially it’s French for “put in place” and means you have everything ready to go. Once your crust is loaded with your toppings place the edge of the peel about ½ inch from the back of the pizza stone and give it a gentle shake to slide it off the peel and onto the stone right in the oven. Start with a small shove that noses the back of the pizza onto the back of the stone. The stone will then grab the pizza, and you can slide it right into the stone and remove the peel. Unlike some kitchen tasks this task is actually easier than it sounds, especially if your pizza is not too heavily laden with toppings. The more weight of the toppings the harder it will be to get it into the oven. If you don’t have a peel or have nightmares about dumping a whole pizza’s worth of toppings into the back of the oven leaving you with no pizza and a smoking mess, then you can build the pizza on the stone or on a cookie sheet or a pizza pan.
Bake the pizza for 18-22 minutes or until the crust is brown and the toppings are all bubbly. You can slide the pizza right back onto the peel in the oven when it is done. (you may need to use a fork to stabilize the pizza so you can shove the peel under it. Careful not to push it off the back of the stone with the peel. Do NOT cut the pizza on the peel or you will score the peel and your raw pizzas will never slide off of it again. Build on the peel, transfer to the stone, take out of the oven on the peel, transfer to a cutting board, and then cut with a pizza cutter, and serve.
Our favorite standard toppings are mushroom, bell pepper, red onion, and black olive on red sauce sprinkled with red pepper flakes. We also love a greek pizza with mushroom, spinach, artichoke, green and black olives, and red onion on white sauce, sprinkled with a little fresh dill, but those toppings are heavy to get off the peel, so I do not recommend starting there. I have included our red and white sauce recipes below, but feel free to experiment with sauces and toppings.
Red Sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 ½ c. tomato sauce
Finely chop garlic. Sauté in olive oil for two minutes. Stir in tomato sauce (or Dom Pepino Pizza sauce if you can get it), and allow the flavors to blend for a couple minutes over low heat. Let me be clear that Dom Pepino is not great, but it is the pizza sauce of my college days, when after a day on the stream we would make homemade pizzas and watch episodes of the X-Files. You can add a chiffonade of basil as you remove the sauce from the heat if you like.
White Sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp flour
1 c. half and half (milk or cream will also work)
½ tsp salt
A few good grinds of pepper
¼ c. freshly grated Parmesan Cheese (the good stuff)(optional)
Finely chop the garlic. In the spring you can use a ramp bulb instead. Sauté it in the olive oil for two minutes. Stir in the flour until it forms a paste. Cook the paste a minute or two to get rid of that raw flour taste. As soon as the paste starts to get translucent, then immediately whisk in the half and half. Remove the sauce from the heat immediately. Stir in a little salt and pepper to taste. Finally, stir in the parmesan cheese if you are using it. Immediately add to the unbaked pizza crust, add toppings, and bake. You will need to add extra half and half if you plan to make it early, because it will thicken when it cools.
5 Tips for Pizza Success
To give you the very best chances at an amazing pie, here are five tips for pizza success:
- The dough really should be kept cold. Don’t take it out of the refrigerator until your toppings are ready and your oven is preheated.
- Buy yourself a pizza stone. Having a stone and a wooden pizza peel will elevate your pizza game significantly.
- Make the dough before you plan to make the pizza. This might go without saying, because the dough needs to rise for a couple of hours, and then needs to be put in the fridge to get cold, but I suggest making it days in advance of your intended use. It will gain elasticity overtime. The dough will keep about 14 days in the refrigerator, but will be significantly easier to work with after it is two or three days old. It will continue to get more elastic, and thus harder to get off the peel, so there is a sweet spot for pizzas with heavy toppings.
- You don’t have to wash the dough bucket. Once you use the last of the dough from your last batch just dump the new ingredients into the bucket and mix. You will essentially be adding a little sourdough starter to your pizza which will give it great flavor and will help that elasticity of great dough develop more quickly.
- Don’t be afraid to try tossing it. If you want to try tossing the dough in the air keep it on your knuckles. Don’t forget to remove your rings so that you don’t tear the dough. Assuming you are right handed start with your right fist at 12 o’clock and your left fist at 6 o’clock under the dough as if there was a flat clock right in front of you. Lift your hands in the air and quickly twist your right fist to 6 o’clock and your left fist to twelve. This skill takes practice, but it can be good fun.
Making a pizza at home can be amazing. Sure, sometimes being lazy and getting delivery seems like a good idea, but homemade pizza will spoil your family, and take out? Well, save that money for a great cocktail and a half a dozen fishing flies for the weekend.