In our house we really like pizza, especially when the parents aren’t about and the cottage turns into the Sunday lunch stop for the Sister, Little Sister and Small Brother. It’s easy to make the dough and sauce ahead of time, leaving the final assembly for when everybody turns up. That way they also get to choose their own toppings, which keeps everybody happy. This is how it works:
Sunday morning
And you? Any must-make toppings for your own pizza lunch/dinner?
Pizza Dough
I make this the lazy way, using the dough setting on my bread machine, but it can easily be made by hand as below. If you’re organised enough, the flavour is definitely improved by making it the night before and leaving it, covered, in the fridge. I like to use a mixture of strong and rye flours but you can, of course, use just strong flour. In my house, this makes three swiss roll tin-sized pizzas which, with salads, overfeeds 5½ people very easily.
Water – 325mls
Olive oil – 2 tablespoons
Strong plain flour – 450g
Rye flour – 50g
Brown sugar – 2 teaspoons
Salt – ½ teaspoon
Dried yeast – 1 sachet or 1½ teaspoons
Olive oil
Bread machine method: place the ingredients in your machine in the order specified – for me, it’s liquids first, then dry ingredients, as above – choose the dough setting and let it work away.
Hand method: for this, your water will need to be at room temperature. Put the flours into a large bowl, add the brown sugar, salt and yeast and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre of the flour, pour in the warm water and olive oil, then mix well together. Allow dough to sit for five minutes, then turn out onto floured worktop and knead until smooth and springy. Place back into the cleaned bowl, rub with a little olive oil and allow to stand in a warm place for about an hour until doubled in size.
Either method: turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and knock back, or gently knead, to push the air out. Store in an oiled bowl, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge until needed.
Pizza Baking
I always use this Simple Tomato Sauce, making a double mixture so that I have enough for tomorrow’s pasta or to freeze for the next batch of pizzas. The polenta is used under the pizza to make sure it doesn’t stick to the tin.
Simple tomato sauce – 1 quantity
Mozzarella balls – 3, chopped
Whatever toppings you like
Olive oil
Polenta, cornmeal or coarse semolina
Preheat the oven to 220ºC.
Sprinkle your baking tins with polenta, cornmeal or coarse semolina.
Cut the dough into three – for large rectangular pizzas – or four, for smaller round pizzas. Roll and stretch the dough until it fits your tin or pizza stone. I find it easiest to roll a piece of dough, let it sit for a few minutes, then finish rolling and stretching it out.
Spread the tomato sauce evenly over the base, sprinkle the mozzarella on top and add toppings as desired. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and cook in the hot oven until golden and bubbling.
Serves 6, easily!
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Sounds like you had a great pizza party. I wish I could make bread .. but I have a yeast phobia :-0 so I will just drool over your photos instead!
Looks delicious! Must send you photo of the other half’s pizza! Must be pizza week!
@Gillian why the yeast phobia? If you’ve cracked chocolate, surely yeast should be simple for you!@Margaret I’m glad you liked the picture as well – it was very much a last minute, we’re-nearly-finished-our-lunch photo! What with all the hands at work, I can’t even remember properly what went on that particular pizza. What did your other half put on his pizza?
Thanks for sharing this fine pizza recipe. Great picture.
Yum, looks so good I must have pizza for lunch , great post:) My fav at the moment is potato and rosemary, sounds odd, but tastes delish. Plenty of chopped rosemary in the dough, then sliced briefly boiled waxy potato on the top with lots of black pepper, parmesan, olive oil, salt & a little more rosemary……..try it!
Oooh! I’d forgotten about that. I love the combination of two starches – it was the one I used always get when we were grabbing a slice of pizza from Steps of Rome back in the Dublin days. Thursday night, soakage needed. I definitely must try it again at home.
I like the sweet one
@V in that case, maybe the sweet pizza won’t disappear into the mists of time…
Your pizza looks great. I make the dough quite similar as you, but don’t put rye flour. I will have to try that. I think it will make the pizza nicer. One tip I have is to put some oregano into the dough – it gives it a nice flavor.