Pizza is a food that we enjoy across the world, whether we indulge in the dish as a snack or include it as part of a dinner there is no getting away from the fact that it’s one of the most popular dishes. However, cooking your own pizza from the comfort of your own home isn’t as hard as it sounds and it’s considerably cheaper to do.
Forget about the fancy dough spinning you have probably seen on the TV, and prepare yourself for a selection of great tips that we are about to give you on how you can make awesome pizza at home.
Pizza at Home – Our biggest tip!
Firstly, we have to start with measuring your ingredients, and in our opinion a lot of homemade pizza bases tend to go wrong at this very step. If you get too much or too little of one type of ingredient then you are heading down a slippery slope of disaster when it comes to creating an awesome pizza.
For many people they tend to give up for good, but just by using a set of good measuring scales you can forget about all that worry and get it done right!
Instructions on how to make awesome pizza at home
It all starts with the ingredients and how big you want the pizza to be, for the purpose of today’s article we are going to look at how you can cook a 10-inch pizza which can serve 3 people.
What you need:
- ½ pound of dough
- 1 bottle of passata sauce or ½ a cup of tomato sauce
- 8-ounces of grated cheese
- Toppings such as mushrooms, bacon, sausage, peppers, pepperoni etc
- A rolling pin
- Parchment paper or baking sheets
Note: you can either pre-make the dough at home if you know how to or you can head to your local grocery store where you can pick up some that has been already made. The latter option is the ideal one if you don’t want to have to measure your ingredients prior to making the base, and also serves as a time saving options when you need to cook a pizza within that 30-minute mark.
Step 1. Prepare the Oven
Your first step should be always to pre-heat your oven and its usually good practice to set the oven to its highest setting at this stage as you will benefit from a nice crispy and crunchy crust to your pizza. Leave the oven a good half hour before you place your pizza into it, which will give you enough time to start making your pizza base.
Step 2. Roll Out The Dough
There are many types of method on rolling out your dough, from the type of flour you are using to the type of parchment or baking sheets you choose to use. For this method we are going to use the popular choice of baking a pizza on a baking sheet.
Firstly, tear off a good sized baking sheet and then brush it over with some olive oil so the pizza base doesn’t stick to the sheet. Knead the dough into a circular shape with your hands, pushing out from the middle and then use a rolling pin if needed to flatten the dough to around ¼-inch thick.
Take a good 5-10 minutes in getting this step right as the perfect base if a fundamental part to a perfect pizza.
Step 3. Coat your Pizza with Toppings
The best part of making any homemade pizza comes with the decision on what delicious toppings that you want to cook with. Firstly you will want to pour over some tomato sauce (passata will do nicely), and then with the back of a spoon circle the sauce around the base until it is evenly covered. Once you have done this throw on your onions, mushrooms, pepperoni and anything else you wish to complete the pizza with.
Step 4. Bake Your Pizza
This is another step that people tend to get wrong and overcook the pizza by leaving it in the oven for way too long, or they end up with a pizza that has been cooked nicely on one side but undercooked on the other side.
Slide your pizza into that high-heated oven and then bake it for around 5 minutes, and then take the pizza out and rotate it, cook again for another 5 minutes. That’s it!
Check to see if your crust is nice golden brown and the cheese has melted to a satisfactory state onto the pizza. If you are happy with the look of it, gently and carefully take the pizza out of the oven.
Step 5. Serve to your guests or eat yourself!
Decisions, decisions! You may have just pulled out possibly the best pizza you have ever made and now you have to share it with friends of family. Whatever the reason was in cooking the pizza you have one last step to perform and that is slicing the pizza.
Firstly let the pizza cool, we know that temptation can easily get the better of you here but cutting a cooled down pizza is much easier and you won’t burn your hands. Once the pizza has cooled down slightly you can now use a pizza cutter to cut the pizza into slices.
Summary
There are many ways to create a pizza base, some are left overnight, and some are cooked under a grill, so it’s up to you to find a way that best suits your needs. The method we have given here is the easiest and quickest way to make a base and create a pizza without needing any extra knowledge.
Above all, just enjoy experimenting and finding different ways of making the perfect homemade pizza.
Last update on 2024-04-25 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
