From scratch pizza that is easy and tasty
Who doesn’t love pizza, I know my family and I love pizza. Its cheesy bready saucy goodness can make anyone feel better. And when made from scratch, it can be considered a semi-healthy dinner. Because it does contain quite a lot of tomatoes, and you can even top it with even more vegetables to make it somewhat healthier.
The pizza crust
The base for any tasty pizza is surely the crust. Whether you prefer your crust thick or thin, without this base there isn’t anything to hold the sauce or cheese. But the pizza base is so much more than just a vessel to hold the sauce and cheese. If made right, it should be light and airy so that the dough can elevate the flavour of the sauce.
Personally, I like a crust that is not too hard but still has that nice crunch to it. If you have small children that are eating the pizza, a slightly softer crust will also enhance their enjoyment greatly. My youngest daughter that has almost 16 teeth, always gets her own pizza that is just baked 2 or 3 minutes shorter. This ensures that the dough is thoroughly baked, but the crust is still quite soft. But if you prefer a thicker, crunchier crust, go ahead and bake that pizza for an extra minute or two.
By adding some herbs like oregano, thyme, basil or any other Mediterranean herbs into your dough, you can make it just that bit more special.
The tomato sauce sauce
There are many different pizza sauces, that don’t contain tomatoes, but the tomato based sauce is the most iconic of all. And because it is veggie based, also the one that doesn’t make me feel guilty when I feed pizza to my family. Whether you make your sauce from fresh tomatoes or from tomato passata. The sauce, when seasoned well, is guaranteed to taste delicious. And in case you were wondering tomato passata is just uncooked tomato puree, so you can use them interchangeably.
But we like a bit more depth of flavour in our sauce then you could get from solely tomatoes. So I always like to add some finely minced onion and some garlic that I grated. The garlic and onion give the sauce some complexity, and I just absolutely adore garlic. The more garlic I can add to a dish the better. Not to forget that garlic and onions are both fantastic for your health since they both contain so many antioxidants.
To further deepen the flavour I like to add not just some herbs but something savoury as well. Mainly by using either Worcestershire sauce or sometimes even Marmite. These two pantry staples are truly magical ingredients that can make a plain dish into an extraordinary dish. And whenever I feel like some oomph is missing, I like to add a bit of either of those two.
The golden crown: Cheese
Maybe the single tastiest food in the entire world, cheese is everything that feels wholesome and comforting to me. Maybe, it’s because of the fact that I’m Dutch and that we are mainly raised on milk and cheese. Since my father was obsessed with Italy and France, I was also exposed to plenty of non-Dutch cheeses. And still am very fond of almost any cheese, although not all cheeses are created equally, especially the ones in the grocery isles.
For the topping of my pizza, I prefer to use a Gouda or Cheddar cheese and for extra melty goodness, some Mozzarella. When I make a pizza all for myself, I also love to add a nice blue cheese, whether you choose Gorgonzola, Stilton or a Danish blue cheese, I find them all equally scrumptious in their own right. Another favourite of mine is to add some goats cheese on my cheese and drizzle some honey over after baking. Alas, my family is not such a fan of strong-smelling cheeses, they won’t even touch Emmentaler. Which, as far as smelly cheeses go, shouldn’t even make the list. But to each their own, and whether you like smelly France cheeses or prefer the sweeter smelling Goudas and Cheddars. If you throw it on top of a pizza, it is bound to be tasty.
Some quick tips for your pizza
For the dough:
If you prefer to use a stretch and fold method then I recommend using the dough that I use for my daily bread.
After your initial rise and you’ve beaten your dough back for its second rise, form it into balls. The best way to do this is to make sure your hands and working area are well floured so that the dough won’t stick to anything. Grab a piece of dough and as if working around a clock, fold the outsides of the dough inwards, until the other side feels quite firm but springy. Then let it rest with the smooth side facing up.
When you come to form your pizza base, start off by either gently rolling it out or slightly pressing it into shape. After this, you lay the dough over your underarm, and while slightly stretching it, you flip it over while also you continuously turn it round. By a combination of you moving it around and gravity, it very gently turns into a large disc of dough. And this way, you keep a much of the air pockets that the yeast created for you. A real Italian pizza baker showed this technique to me when I still lived in my previous town. His pizzas are still the best I have ever tasted. And the reason why my eldest daughter fell in love with pizzas.
For the sauce:
Make sure you taste the sauce while you make it. It sounds obvious, but you want it to taste good, and maybe even a bit too strong tasting. Because after you add the pizza crust and the cheese, it would otherwise get lost in the sea of flavours.
Also, make sure you don’t ladle the sauce on too thickly because it will create a soggy bottom. Italians use the sauce sparingly and know that too much of a good thing is not always so good.
For the pizza toppings:
You will want to use a good melting cheese. Generally, this is any young Cheddar or Gouda and of course Mozzarella. Plenty of the moldy cheeses are also great for melting and make excellent pizza topping cheeses.
If you like to add some meat toppings, salami and chorizo are our family’s favourites. But bacon and precooked beef mince are also always a good choice. And by marinading some chicken pieces, your flavour options become almost endless.
And for veggie toppings, the sky is the limit. Whether you put on thin slices of garlic or some extra strips of onion. Thinly sliced cherry tomatoes are also always a good option.
So go and experiment with all the different flavours and toppings you can think of.
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Homemade pizza
Ingredients
Pizza crust
- 450 gr plain flour
- 300 ml water lukewarm
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 3 tsp instant yeast standard yeast packet
- 2 tsp sugar optional (helps yeast work faster)
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp Mediterranean herbs of choice optional
Pizza sauce
- 500 gr tomato passata or tomato sauce
- 1 medium onion finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic grated
- 1/2 tbsp Mediterranean herbs of choice
- 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg optional
Pizza toppings
- 200 gr grated cheese
- 1 ball Mozzarella
- some blue cheese or other cheese of choice optional
- some salami or chorizo slices optional
- some bacon bits optional
- some mushroom slices optional
- some diced vegetables like onion or paprika optional
- some slices of cherry tomatoes or olives optional
Instructions
Pizza crust
- In a large bowl, add in the flour and salt then mix these well. If you want to add the herbs as well then you can add them in at this point.
- For the yeast, you can either check if it's still viable by adding it into the measuring jug with the water and sugar or just go ahead and add it into the flour and salt mixture together with the sugar. Both give the same result, although I recommend the former if your yeast is particularly old.
- After stirring in your yeast and sugar, add in the oil and water. Combining everything with a spoon at first helps keep your hands cleaner, after which you turn the dough out onto your counter to be able to start kneading.
- After kneading for roughly 10 minutes the dough should be springy, or when you push your finger in slightly the dough should retake its shape.
- Let rise for 45 minutes to an hour or until doubled in size.
- After its initial rise, divide the dough into 4 equal pieces and shape into round balls.
- To form round balls, grab a piece of dough and as if working around a clock, fold the outsides of the dough inwards, until the other side feels quite firm but springy. Then let it rest with the smooth side facing up.
- Let rise for another 15 to 30 minutes or until doubled. This tends to be when I start making the sauce.
Pizza sauce
- Finely dice the onion and grate the garlic, then add to a saucepan and let the onions sweat for a couple of minutes.
- Add in the rest of the ingredients for the sauce, mix well and bring to a boil and let simmer for about 5 minutes.
- Set to the side until you're ready to top the pizzas.
Pizza assembly
- Roll out the dough or shape it by folding it over your arm while you turn it.
- Add one or two spoonfuls of sauce onto the middle of the pizza dough and smear to the sides in a circular motion.
- Sprinkle over the grated cheese and rip pieces of Mozzarella off and scatter over the pizza.
- Add additional toppings of your choice if you want to.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 250C for 10 to 15 minutes.
Notes
Or let your guests top their own pizzas and save yourself some time.
