Making the Perfect Pizza at Home
Many years ago I stumbled across this Spring Cream Pizza recipe over at Lady & Pups. It surprised me that you could create such an exceptional looking pizza at home. This discovery lead me on a delicious adventure and I’m now the proud owner of Joe Beddia’s “Pizza Camp” book. This book contains more information about the background of this recipe and method and is well worth a read if you’re interested.
Making Pizza at home can seem intimidating when you’re at the beginning of your bread making adventures. Even though the recipe itself is simple, different types of yeast or flour can yield different finished products. As with all things, practice makes progress. The more pizza you make, the better the pizza you make will be. Getting a feel for the way the dough responds to temperature and time will help you decide what works best in your kitchen with your ingredients.
Please don’t let this discourage you, as this dough recipe is quite forgiving and well worth a try. Getting a pizza stone or two will vastly improve the crust and cooking consistency of your pizza at home – but it’s also not essential. You can make perfectly good pizza with a metal baking tray (a.k.a. cookie sheet) and a very hot oven.
You will get slightly better results by using a stand mixer. However, the original recipe only requires mixing with a spoon.
A final note, please go easy on the toppings with this base. As the dough is already at quite a high hydration, extra moisture from the toppings can really jeopardize the integrity of the finished pizza.
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Pizza Dough at Home!
Mix Water and sugar together in a large container or stand mixer bowl until mostly dissolved.
Add Yeast, Flour & Olive Oil & Mix until combined.
Cover Loosely & Let mixture rest for 20mins. This stage is called "Autolyse" and helps the yeast activate before adding salt and helps the flour fully hydrate before we start building gluten structure.
After the mix has rested add in your Salt.
If you're using a stand mixer, with the dough hook attachment - run mixer on low to knead the dough for approx 10mins.
If you're not using a stand mixer, just mix the salt through the dough until fully incorporated as best as possible.
You can hand knead if you want, but the mixture will be very sticky and this step isn't 100% necessary as sufficient gluten will form over time.
Cover your bowl well (with clingfilm, gladwrap, etc.) or transfer dough to a sealed container & refrigerate for 1-2 days.
This period is called the bulk ferment.
Bring your dough out of the fridge after bulk fermenting (Approx 2.5hrs before you want to eat).
It should have doubled in size. Push down with damp hands and knead the dough just until it returns approximately to it's original size.
Seperate bulk dough into individual pizza portions and allow to come to room temperature (covered) over the next 1-2hrs.
If using pizza stones, place carefully in cold oven before turning on.
Preheat Oven to 240°C (or 464°F)
Prepare squares of baking paper for each dough portion, just a bit bigger than your final pizza will be.
Also have on hand either a thin chopping board, pizza peel or flat baking sheet to transfer/slide the raw assembled pizza and paper onto the pre-heated stone in your pre-heated oven.
If you aren't using a pizza stone - you'll want to a metal cookie sheet / baking tray ready.
With clean, damp (not wet) hands - take one of the dough portions from earlier. Use your hands to gentle flatten and stretch the dough, working from the inside out in a circular spiral motion. You want to tease the dough into a flat round shape. As the dough disk gets larger, you can place it on your baking paper square and complete the final stretching / shaping as desired.
Top the base with your desired toppings without overloading it.
When you're ready to cook, slide the baking paper square onto your transfer tool of choice (i.e. pizza peel).
Moving quickly so you don't lose too much heat from the oven, open the door and thrust the pizza onto the stone (it should be a sharp movement that allows the prepared pizza & paper to slip off your transfer tool and land on the stone).
You don't want to launch it so dramatically that the toppings fall off, but just enough that you are able to place the pizza directly on the stone without burning yourself or having the pizza bunch up at the front of the stone.
If you are baking the pizza on a tray without a stone - just put the tray into the oven. It will be fine.
Bake for approx 10-15 minutes, keeping an eye on it to ensure it's not browning too quickly. You may need to turn the temperature down if things are happening too quickly, because you want to make sure the base is cooked before the toppings burn.
Once cooked, remove the pizza from the oven and allow to cool slightly before cutting & serving.
Ingredients
Directions
Mix Water and sugar together in a large container or stand mixer bowl until mostly dissolved.
Add Yeast, Flour & Olive Oil & Mix until combined.
Cover Loosely & Let mixture rest for 20mins. This stage is called "Autolyse" and helps the yeast activate before adding salt and helps the flour fully hydrate before we start building gluten structure.
After the mix has rested add in your Salt.
If you're using a stand mixer, with the dough hook attachment - run mixer on low to knead the dough for approx 10mins.
If you're not using a stand mixer, just mix the salt through the dough until fully incorporated as best as possible.
You can hand knead if you want, but the mixture will be very sticky and this step isn't 100% necessary as sufficient gluten will form over time.
Cover your bowl well (with clingfilm, gladwrap, etc.) or transfer dough to a sealed container & refrigerate for 1-2 days.
This period is called the bulk ferment.
Bring your dough out of the fridge after bulk fermenting (Approx 2.5hrs before you want to eat).
It should have doubled in size. Push down with damp hands and knead the dough just until it returns approximately to it's original size.
Seperate bulk dough into individual pizza portions and allow to come to room temperature (covered) over the next 1-2hrs.
If using pizza stones, place carefully in cold oven before turning on.
Preheat Oven to 240°C (or 464°F)
Prepare squares of baking paper for each dough portion, just a bit bigger than your final pizza will be.
Also have on hand either a thin chopping board, pizza peel or flat baking sheet to transfer/slide the raw assembled pizza and paper onto the pre-heated stone in your pre-heated oven.
If you aren't using a pizza stone - you'll want to a metal cookie sheet / baking tray ready.
With clean, damp (not wet) hands - take one of the dough portions from earlier. Use your hands to gentle flatten and stretch the dough, working from the inside out in a circular spiral motion. You want to tease the dough into a flat round shape. As the dough disk gets larger, you can place it on your baking paper square and complete the final stretching / shaping as desired.
Top the base with your desired toppings without overloading it.
When you're ready to cook, slide the baking paper square onto your transfer tool of choice (i.e. pizza peel).
Moving quickly so you don't lose too much heat from the oven, open the door and thrust the pizza onto the stone (it should be a sharp movement that allows the prepared pizza & paper to slip off your transfer tool and land on the stone).
You don't want to launch it so dramatically that the toppings fall off, but just enough that you are able to place the pizza directly on the stone without burning yourself or having the pizza bunch up at the front of the stone.
If you are baking the pizza on a tray without a stone - just put the tray into the oven. It will be fine.
Bake for approx 10-15 minutes, keeping an eye on it to ensure it's not browning too quickly. You may need to turn the temperature down if things are happening too quickly, because you want to make sure the base is cooked before the toppings burn.
Once cooked, remove the pizza from the oven and allow to cool slightly before cutting & serving.
Notes
My favourite and most basic topping consists of 50g pre-made pizza sauce, enough sliced bocconcini or baby mozzarella to cover about half the pizza, thickly sliced pepperoni and fresh basil.
You want to make sure the toppings aren’t too thick so the base cooks quickly and evenly. Lower moisture content toppings also work best, as adding excess water can make everything a bit soggy.
The dough base is completely vegan, so by choosing your favourite toppings the final pizza is endlessly customizable.
Vegan cheese has come a really long way, but isn’t the only option for a delicious pizza. You can get creative with grilled vegetables, pesto (the cheese free kind!) , sauces, dips, fresh and pickled vegetables.
Crumbled Blue cheese works especially well with pear and caramelized onions, but can also be paired with figs, honey & prosciutto and topped with fresh rocket and a balsamic drizzle.
Be careful with soft cheeses as they can be quite oily when melted, so be restrained. Blue cheese can also easily overpower other flavours and depends greatly on personal preference.
Slightly damp hands usually helps, but too wet and the dough will fall apart.
Room temperature dough is also easier to handle than when it’s super cold straight out of the fridge. (2hrs out of the fridge before shaping is recommended)
A light dusting of flour can help if things are going badly.
Use flour sparingly when your hands are wet.
If your hands are too wet it will change the hydration ratio of your dough.
Keep practicing and you will make delicious progress!
Key Ingredients
