Oven Style Pizza

Making homemade pizza from scratch is a great family fun meal. My 4 year old daughter always wants to help me when I’m making pizza and will even make her own mini pizza. Making your own dough and sauce is really not that daunting as well. With a little bit of effort, you’ll be making pizza that is better than take out.

Let’s make the pizza dough!

If you’re making pizza at home then you NEED to make homemade dough. It’s really not hard and is so worth the little effort. All you’ll need is:

• ’00’ Flour
• Salt
• Instant Yeast
• Water
• Olive Oil

Just mix your dry ingredients together, add your wet ingredients to the dry mixture, and mix everything together and knead for about 10 minutes. If you have a Stand Mixer, feel free to knead using the dough hook (I always use mine for this). Once you’re done kneading, form a ball and coat it with some more olive oil. Put it in a bowl and that’s it – the dough is ready to rise!

Let’s have the dough proof/rise!

There really are a few different ways to do this. If you planned ahead and have some time, I highly recommend covering the bowl with clingwrap and letting the pizza dough proof in the refrigerator for 3 days or at least a minimum of overnight. Just take the dough out of the refrigerator on the day you plan on cooking around 5-6 hours ahead of time so that it can come to room temperature and continue to rise. If you’re making the dough the same day you will eat it, cover the bowl with foil or a wet towel and let it rise in a warm place (I use my shutoff oven) for about 2 hours. The dough will double in that time.

Let’s make the sauce!

A good pizza sauce requires just four ingredients:

• San Marzano Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Salt
• Olive Oil

I will combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and blend them all together. You can make it as smooth or as chunky as you’d like. This is one of my favorite things about cooking – you can cater everything to your own taste!

Let’s talk about toppings.

If you’re reading this, then I am willing to bet you already have a good idea of what you like for pizza toppings. I am not here to change your mind about it, I am here to share what I like and tell you about a few tips I’ve learned that will take your pizza up a notch (I am looking at YOU cheese). First, here is what I like on my pizza:

• Fresh Mozzarella
• Pepperoni
• Fresh Basil
• Pecorino Romano

Sure, sometimes I like to add mushrooms or garlic as well but the toppings listed above are a good base for me. There are two things that I want you to focus on. First is fresh mozzarella. Please always get fresh vs the shredded one. I like to slice it into pieces and then break those slices and top all over the pizza. Second is pecorino romano. After I put all of the toppings on the pizza, I like to finish it with some grated pecorino romano (I grate it myself – not the pre-grated kind) as it gives the pizza amazing flavor.

Let’s assemble!

The first thing that you will want to do is get a large oven pan. Pour a little bit of olive oil in the pan and spread it around – this will give the bottom of the pizza flavor and keep it from sticking to the pan. Next roll out your dough using your hands or a rolling pin. I prefer to use the gravity method of holding the dough by it’s crust in the air and constantly moving it (think of turning a steering wheel) while gravity stretches it out. Of course, using a rolling pin works just fine too. Then put the dough in the pan, add a light to medium layer of sauce, the fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, and finish with some grated pecorino romano. I then like to brush the crust with a mixture of olive oil and Spiceology’s Pizza Blend. Also, I did not forget the fresh basil – I will add that with 5 minutes remaining in the cook.

Let’s cook!

Once the pizza is assembled, it’s ready to go into the oven. I cook my oven pizzas at 420ºF for 15 minutes before removing the pizza and adding fresh basil on top. Then it’s back in the oven for another 5 minutes. After a total cook time of 20 minutes, I’ll look at the pizza to see if I am happy with how the cheese melted and I’ll feel the crust to see if it’s crispy enough to my liking. If not, I’ll leave it in another 2 minutes or so but also keeping an eye on it so that it does not burn. Once it’s done, give it another 5 minutes to cool down and it’s ready to slice.

Let’s recap!

After reading this, I hope you can see how much fun making pizza is. It’s perfect to do with kids that have an interest in helping in the kitchen. Making your own dough and sauce is not only fun, but it goes a long way in having a much better tasting pizza. Fresh ingredients are key as well. Stop buying pre-shredded mozzarella and pre-grated pecorino romano. The extra effort of cutting or grating it yourself makes for a much tastier pizza. Give it a shot and let me know what you think. Do these things and you’ll have a pizza my heart .