Making your own pizza can be as easy or as hard as you want to make it. On the easy side you have McCain family pre-made pizza. Putting in a little more effort you can buy pre-made pizza bases, pre-made pizza sauces and use whatever toppings you want. This is what we did tonight.
In the past we have gone the full stretch – hand-made dough, hand-made sauce. If you have the time it’s well worth it. When you’re making your own dough I suggest attempting a stuffed crust – lay a circle of cheese just within the pizza base edge and fold over the edge capturing the cheese inside. It doesn’t have to be just cheese – add herbs – thyme is nice, or sauce too.
Pizza Base
- Pizza dough is flour (high gluten if you can), water, oil, sugar, salt and yeast. Just grab a recipe ratio off the ‘net. If I get around to making dough again I’ll update with the recipe I use. Remember with all dough based recipes to take into account your climate. If it’s moist in the air you don’t need as much water in the recipe, for example.
- Mix warm water, yeast and sugar. Yeast likes 27 – 32 degrees Celsius for perfect rising. I use a pyrex measuring jug for this step. You know it’s done when it starts to foam.
- Add the activated yeast to the dry ingredients along with the oil. Mix with a wooden spoon until lumpy and stiff.
- Flour a flat surface and start kneading the dough. Use knuckles. A granite or stone bench is perfect for this step. Formica also works fine. Keep adding four so it doesn’t stick.
- Oil a large bowl and plop in the dough in a ball. It will double in size so make sure your bowl is big enough.
- Place the bowl of dough in a warm spot. I sometimes heat the oven to 50 degrees then switch it off and use the warm oven to rise the dough.
- Once the dough has doubled in size (1 to 2 hours) squeeze the air out and divide into pizza portions.
- Either roll the dough out into pizza bases or spin it like a real italian.
Anyway, as I said we started with pre-made pizza bases. I used thin & crispy turkish bread pizza bases. These are more expensive than most pre-made bases but definitely worth it. It’s a pink packet of three available in most supermarkets in the chilled asile.
For the pizza sauce I used Leggo’s Pizza Sauce, the upside down squeeze container. Making your own pizza sauce is easy. The primary ingredient is tomato paste and as long as what you end up is thick not watery it will work well. I’ve heard of people using Alfredo sauce as a base. I presume any sort of sauce works, but tomato tastes the best.
We made four pizzas tonight with various toppings. I recommend making a few small bowls of the toppings and letting everyone create their own pizza.
Pizza Toppings
- Chopped capsicum
- Sliced mushrooms
- Fried pancetta
- Sliced pepperoni salami
- Sliced chorizo
- A couple of other weird salami style sausages I picked up at the supermarket. Just try them and find out which ones you like. Salami lasts a long time so I always try and make sure we have some available.
- Chopped heirloom tomatoes
- Sour cream
- Whitlocks Caramelised Onion Chutney
- Sweet thai chili
- Sliced chilis
- Tabasco sauce
- Gherkins
- Mixed herbs
- Peri-peri fried prawns
And of course cheese. If you’re up for it I strongly suggest Mozzarella. I was fortunate enough to get enough milk last year and make my own. It was fantastic. If you get a mozzarella pear just slice whole rounds off it and lay them on your pizza. They will melt and bubble fine.
For our pizzas tonight we had bought a couple of packets of cubed edam cheese. This wasn’t ideal as I had to halve each cube. Chunks or slices of cheese is fine, grated cheese works well too.
Make sure your oven is hot. With a thin base you really just want to brown the cheese and crisp the base. I use a pizza stone to help crisp the base – make sure the stone heats up with the oven and try not to cool it down too much when you put a pizza on it. We used an oven temperature of 200 degrees Celsius. Switch to grill at the end to really brown the top of the pizza.
I don’t know what to do with the cheese that spills out onto the pizza stone. At the moment it just gets blacker and blacker as I cook pizza. I’ve tried to scrape it off but it doesn’t work so well. Perhaps I’m using too much cheese?
Once the pizza is cooked I whisk it out of the oven and chop it on a wooden chopping board before transferring it to a plate. If you want to garnish I suggest the usual – a sprig of parsley or a leaf of basil.
Once the pizza is cooked extra sauces can be added. Sour cream, bbq sauce, satay, etc.
My favourite pizza toppings
- Tomato base, basil, mozzarella
- Cranberry sauce, chicken, brie, rosemary
- Tomato base, feta, olives, pine nuts, oregano
- Tomato base, salami, olives, chilis, mozzarella
- Tomato base, prawns, sweet thai chili sauce
- Tomato base, thinly sliced lamb, satay sauce, peanuts
Almost any conventional meal can be turned into a pizza. One of our favourite restaurant is Barzurk. They cook pasta, salads and pizza and have a large domed wood fired oven at the back.
I’ve always wanted a pizza oven. I have plans to remove our current, unused gas fireplace and replace it with a wood fire oven using the existing chimney. Pizza ovens can be purchased, but with the right bricks you can build one yourself.
The pizzas were enjoyed by all. We had vague plans to save the leftovers for lunch tomorrow, however there were no leftovers.
– Big T
What's The Matta 
They were so delicious too. I ❤ homemade pizzas.