This was my first effort at a fully homemade pizza; to be honest it was my first effort at a pizza that was made at home in any sense of the phrase! Well, you’ll never learn unless you try new things! I went off the below recipe for the dough and sauce:
Dough
• 200g self-raising flour
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• Around 100ml of warm water
Sauce
• One tin of tinned tomatoes
• Dash of sugar
• Nice squeeze of tomato paste
• Some parsley and basil
• Season with salt n pepper
Firstly, fire up the oven to around 220c or gas mark 7 while you prepare the rest of the meal. Next, put all of the ingredients needed for the sauce into a pan on the hob, bring to a boil and simmer. This needs to be reduced to a lovely thick base sauce for the pizza. It should be stirred frequently while you’re making the dough.
Put all the ingredients for the dough into a large mixing bowl and first stir around with a knife (I thought this was odd advice but it does work, with a normal knife!) until the dough starts to come together. Once the dough comes together add a little flour to your hands and knead the dough in the mixing bowl for a few minutes. Once it’s in a nice ball of dough, transfer it to a work surface or chopping board that’s lightly floured; I’d recommend the former as it doesn’t move around! Knead for up to a further 5 minutes until it’s nice and springy and consistent. If it gets sticky then add a little flour, if a little dry, add some water.
By now the sauce should be reducing nicely and be nice and thick with a lovely aroma! Once the sauce is thick enough to be classed as a paste rather than a sauce, then you’re ready to roll out the dough.
Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out the dough to your preference of size and thickness. Some people prefer a thick base pizza and others a thin and crispy. For my first attempt (this one) I rolled it out to around 3mm thick and it turned out as a nice compromise between thin n crispy and thick based.
With the base rolled out, transfer it to a pizza tray, pinch the edges to form a lip and add the tomato sauce and spread evenly. Then add some sliced raw onion followed by a healthy coating of grated cheese. After this it’s your pizza; for me I just added pepperoni, but you can add whatever toppings you prefer!
Once you’ve prepared your pizza simply put it into the now baking hot oven for 8-10 minutes depending on the oven. Check it after 5, 8 and 10 minutes and every minute after that until it’s cooked to your liking.
Slice it up and serve straight away!
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