Beatrice's Pizza for dummies

I got this pizza dough recipe from Smitten Kitchen, I really felt like making pizza after we made it Brenda's (my cousin) house. Bernadette, Luke and Oliver could make their own pizzas without screwing it up! 

I highly recommend this because it takes 20 mins to prep+mix the ingredients & let it rise, 1-1.5hrs for it to rise, 10 mins to put the toppings on and 10-12 mins for it to bake. It's even called 'really simple homemade pizza'. 

Really Simple Pizza Dough

Makes enough for one small, thin crust pizza. Double it if you like your pizza thick and bready.

1 1/2 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)

1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.

If you are finding this step difficult, one of the best tricks I picked up from my bread-making class is to simply pause. Leave the dough in a lightly-floured spot, put the empty bowl upside-down on top of it and come back in 2 to 5 minutes, at which point you will find the dough a lot more lovable.

Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl (a spritz of cooking spray perfectly does the trick) where you had mixed it — one-bowl recipe! — dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.

Dump it back on the floured counter (yup, I leave mine messy), and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes.

Sprinkle a pizza stone or baking sheet with cornmeal and preheat your oven to its top temperature. Roll out the pizza, toss on whatever topping and seasonings you like. (I always err on the side of skimpy with toppings so to not weight down the dough too much, or if I have multiple toppings, to keep them very thinly sliced.)

Bake it for about 10 minutes until it’s lightly blistered and impossible to resist.

Note: It does not make one 'small, thin crust pizza'. When i made it, i did a thick and bready pizza without having to double the portions. It was also pretty big! 

 

dough after being mixed

Also you should always prep all your ingredients before starting on the dough (learnt from my mistakes). On my first try, i put way too much water when mixing the dough. Don't do that because you'll have to add more flour and your hands will get really sticky when kneading! 

For my toppings i put diced peppers mixed with olive oil, mushrooms, bacon and cheese. 

it looked like this on the website but mine turned out like this:

Still good for a first try i guess!! Sorry for the lack of photos, i wasn't planning to blog about pizza making. 

THE VERDICT:

In my opinion, any pizza is good pizza, unless of course, it gives me food poisoning. Which thankfully Beatrice's didn't. So though Beatrice's pizza was rather cold, it was no doubt very good! I liked how she was generous with the toppings and there was a rather large spread of ingredients (capsicum, ham, cheese etc etc) The dough got a bit hard and dense, due to the temperature! But other than that, homemade pizza is the way to go!!

Pizza - 7 points