The easiest-yummiest Pizza!

Pizza should be the food of the century, or may be, the millenium. I mean, who doesn’t like pizza? If you don’t like pizza, I will have serious trust issues with you. (Jk, if you’re reading this, then you should know that you’re the best, thank you for taking out your time  to read a crazy baker rant about her love for pizza)

I love making any kind of bread. It’s my favourite task, because one simple recipe can be turned and twisted into so many amazing things! This bread is just a base recipe on which you can build and create so many different things. I have so many things in mind, I cannot wait to share the recipes with you. Yes this dough needs to be kneaded by hand if you do not have a stand mixer with a dough attachment. But if you’re an Indian, you’ll be used to seeing rotis being made, hence kneading shouldn’t be an alien task, if done in a good mood, it’s actually relaxing. Also, arm workout BONUS! Although if you absolutely detest it, then I have seen a lot of posts online saying that you can mix the dough and leave it overnight to proof and do it’s own thing. I have tried it. IT WORKS. But you just need patience, alas, everything has it’s own pros and cons.

Of course you can buy your pizza, but why would you? When you can make this heavenly pizza using the best ingredients you have on hand, use whatever toppings you like, as much cheese as you want and as big as you want. It’s seriously a bomb recipe to keep in your back pocket.

This recipe makes one 10 inch pizza, you can double the recipe if you like to make more.

Ingredients:

Base-

250g all purpose flour

1 tsp active dry yeast (5g)

1 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt

80-120 ml water

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp garlic powder/paste (optional)

Toppings: 

Pizza sauce (EASY)-

5-6 tbsp Tomato sauce

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp italian seasoning

Chilli flakes (optional and to taste)

Other toppings: I used 150-200g pizza cheese block and chicken pepperoni (You can use any of your favourite toppings, just remember, less is more)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, add about 40ml of luke warm water, sugar and yeast. Keep aside for 5 mins.
2. When you see the water is bubbly, this means your yeast is active and alive if this doesn’t happen, it means that your yeast is dead, you need to buy a new packet.
3. Sift your flour and salt into the bowl, then add the garlic paste and olive oil. Bring the dough together with your hand adding the remaining water little by little. You may need more or less water, it varies. Once it forms a ball, drop it on a clean, dry, floured surface and begin kneading it for about 10-15 mins till the dough becomes smooth. You can knead the dough on a standing mixture if you have one and skip the hand kneading. The dough should almost spring back when you poke it, if it does, it’s ready for proofing. (For no knead method, check notes)
4. Oil a large bowl (you can use the same previous bowl) put the dough in the bowl, rub some oil on the surface of the dough, cover with plastic wrap and keep it in the warmest spot of your house, covered with a towel for about 1-2 hours or till it has doubled in size.
5. Once your dough has risen, you need to pre heat your oven to the highest temperature it has, mine goes up to 225 °C so I preheated to that temperature.
6. If you have a pizza stone, you need to keep it in the oven before this preheating process, I do not have one. Take a large baking tray, larger than the size of the pizza you want to make, put it upside down, put a sheet of parchment and rub a little olive oil on it.
7. Take your doubled in size pizza dough, put it on this sheet of parchment, and using your hands, spread out the dough to the desired size, you can rub some olive oil on your hands to prevent sticking, just ensure that whatever size you make the pizza, it shouldn’t be thicker than 2-2.5 cms and not too thin either.
8. Once you reach your desired size, pinch the circumference of the crust to create a sort of crater wall, just to ensure that the pizza sauce doesn’t fall over in the oven.
9. Spread the pizza sauce evenly with a spoon, add your cheese and your desired toppings and bake for about 15 mins or until the cheese is melted and nice and bubbly. Enjoy!!

Notes:

1. If you do not want to knead, then once you mix all the ingredients just bring them all together with your hand so that there are no dry bits of flour, cover the bowl in plastic wrap and put it in a warm dry spot for minimum 6-8 hours, or best over night. After the given time, you can work with this dough as mentioned above.
2. If you are using fresh herbs as toppings, add them after you take the pizza out of the oven.
3. Make sure your yeast is alive, or else this recipe won’t work. Also, do not add salt directly on to the yeast. Salt and yeast are enemies if they come in direct contact.

I really hope you will try this out, it’s a beautiful recipe, and I make this very often. Do try it and let me know how it worked for you.

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Happy Baking!

Love,

Bakesalotlady❤