Homemade Pizza
Homemade pizza is such an easy and fun thing to do. It’s a great family activity and can also be a great social activity where everyone can get involved.
The thought of making dough can scare people, and I assure you it used to scare me, but when I gave it a shot it turned out to be way easier than I thought!
Here is my recipe for a pizza dough and pizza sauce. All you need to add are toppings!
Have fun!.
Step 1
Start with your dough.
The first step is to add your yeast and warm water to a bowl big enough to mix the dough. Give it a quick mix with a fork and let it stand for about 5 min. This is going to reactivate the yeast.
After 5 minutes you should see some foam forming on top of the water/yeast mixture, this means its ready.
Step 2
When the yeast is ready, mix in the sugar and oil.
Mix the salt into the flour and then slowly add to the yeast/sugar/oil mixture to make a sticky dough. You can do this with a spoon, in a mixture or with your hands, its up to you and what equipment you have.
Once all the flour has been added you should have a slightly sticky dough. If its too dry, add a splash of water. If it’s too wet, add some flour.
Step 3
Lightly dust your counter top with flour and turn out your dough.
Kneed until you have a nice smooth ball that doesn’t stick to your hands, but make sure you don’t overwork the dough.
Once you are done, form it into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with some cling wrap or a damp towel, and set aside in a warm spot. This dough needs an hour to rise.
Step 4
Now it’s time to get onto the sauce.
Dice your onion and mince your garlic. Set these aside (separately).
Slice your basil leaves and set aside.
Empty both cans of tomatoes into a bowl and use a fork or masher to just break them up a bit into smaller pieces.
Step 5
Put a saucepan on your stove on a medium heat. Add some olive oil and wait until it get hot (you’ll see the oil will look a bit shimmery, this is when you know its ready).
Add you onions and sweat for a few minutes until they go a bit translucent.
Once the onions start going translucent, add the garlic. You only want to cook this for about a minute.
TIP: If you like, you can also add some chopped red pepper at the same time as the onions, it adds a nice new flavour to the sauce.
After a minute, add the tomatoes, sugar, oregano and basil and stir the sauce.
Season with salt and pepper and allow to slowly simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes your sauce should have thickened nicely. At this point I just like to break up the bigger bits with a fork or a stick blender.
Don’t get too carried away here, you still want some chunky bits in your sauce!
Step 6
Now it’s time to make your pizza!
Make sure wherever you are cooking your pizza is ready. The pizza oven should be hot, or the oven should be at 250C. If you are making very thick bases turn down the temperature to 220C to make sure the base has time to cook before the top burns. If you have a pizza stone make sure you put it in the oven when you switch it on so it heats up with the oven.
Grab your dough and turn it out onto your counter (don’t forget to dust with flour first). Give it a quick few kneads and then divide into as many pizzas as you want to make (the recipe does about 4). Make sure the you keep the dough you aren’t working with under a damp dishtowel to stop it drying out.
Roll out your base the the thickness you like (just don’t make it too thin or you will struggle to move it into your oven).
Add a dollop of sauce and spread it around.
Now add whatever topping you like!
Pop it in the oven on a tray (an upside down baking tray can work too) and bake for around 10 min, or until the base is cooked through. Make sure to keep an eye on it so you don’t burn all your hard work!
And now, enjoy!
TIP: If you don’t use all your dough you can freeze it until next time, just put it in the fridge the morning you want to use it. Same goes for the sauce. If you are going to use the sauce again soon, it will keep in the fridge for about a week.
Ingredients
This recipe makes dough and sauce for about 4 large pizzas.
Dough:
1x 10g Packet Dry Yeast
2x Cups All Purpose Flour
1x Tablespoon Sugar
1x Teaspoon Coarse Salt
30ml Olive Oil
125ml Warm Water
Sauce:
2x 400g Cans of Whole Peeled Tomatoes
1x Small Onion
1x Clove Garlic
1x Teaspoon Dried Oregano
3-4 Fresh Basil Leaves