This Instructable will show how to make an at home variation on the classic Neapolitan pizza. We'll be doing it with a dough and sauce recipe that has always been used by my family. In this instructable we'll be making a Pizza Margherita (Basil, tomato, mozzarella). If you've never had it before, be willing to give it a try. This is not a recipe for the typical American pizza, overflowing with toppings, but rather about the balance of few, simple, great quality ingredients.
This is the full recipe for everything for the pizzas, including homemade sauce and dough. In theory- you could skip making your own sauce and supplement it with a good quality, tomato-basil sauce - but I think you'll notice a difference in quality. Likewise, you can skip making your own dough, but it's simple, cheap, and well worth the extra work.
This is the full recipe for everything for the pizzas, including homemade sauce and dough. In theory- you could skip making your own sauce and supplement it with a good quality, tomato-basil sauce - but I think you'll notice a difference in quality. Likewise, you can skip making your own dough, but it's simple, cheap, and well worth the extra work.
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Signing UpStep 1: The Dough
For the dough, we want a crust that will be crispy, strong, and will puff up in the hot oven. We'll need the following ingredients for the pizza:
1.5 Tablespoons of Honey
1 Teaspoons of Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3/4 Cup of warm water
2 Cups of Flour (Bread flour preferred, AP acceptable)
1 package of Active instant yeast
First, start by combing the salt, yeast, and about 3/4 of the flour in a mixing bowl. In the photos, I'm using a stand mixer to do the mixing and kneading for me, but this can easily be done by hand as well.
Slowly add the warm water and combine. For yeast, the water should be at about 115 degrees. The best way to determine this temperature without a thermometer is to keep your hands under the running water while it heats up. The water should be hot enough where it doesn't burn (and you can keep your hands under it), but still warm enough. Lukewarm water will cause the yeast to not activate, and too hot will kill the yeast.
After adding the water, add the honey and oil and continue to mix until fully combined. At this stage, add in the remaining flour set aside from earlier. Depending on a number of factors (most often humidity) you may need to either add a bit more additional flour, or not all of what remains.
At this point, you'll be either ready to knead the dough with your hands or run with a dough hook for 8-10 minutes. After fully kneading, oil the mixing bowl that it was in and let sit, covered, for approximately one hour.
1.5 Tablespoons of Honey
1 Teaspoons of Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3/4 Cup of warm water
2 Cups of Flour (Bread flour preferred, AP acceptable)
1 package of Active instant yeast
First, start by combing the salt, yeast, and about 3/4 of the flour in a mixing bowl. In the photos, I'm using a stand mixer to do the mixing and kneading for me, but this can easily be done by hand as well.
Slowly add the warm water and combine. For yeast, the water should be at about 115 degrees. The best way to determine this temperature without a thermometer is to keep your hands under the running water while it heats up. The water should be hot enough where it doesn't burn (and you can keep your hands under it), but still warm enough. Lukewarm water will cause the yeast to not activate, and too hot will kill the yeast.
After adding the water, add the honey and oil and continue to mix until fully combined. At this stage, add in the remaining flour set aside from earlier. Depending on a number of factors (most often humidity) you may need to either add a bit more additional flour, or not all of what remains.
At this point, you'll be either ready to knead the dough with your hands or run with a dough hook for 8-10 minutes. After fully kneading, oil the mixing bowl that it was in and let sit, covered, for approximately one hour.
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You can use a large terra cotta planter (unglazed ofcourse) sitting on a tile or the planter base bowl thing you put under it to catch water when using for a plant). Turn it upside down so it rests on the tile or planter base and you now have a true brickoven replica for whatever will fit within the planter. A 14" diameter pot fits in my oven.
BTW: Make your terra cotta-brick oven stones/cookware resistant to food splatters cooking onto it by using cooking oil on a paper towel and rubbing all over the inside of the pot before heating it in the oven.
I love this frugal and creative idea.
Any idea if all tiles are safe to cook with, or could some "unglazed quarry tiles" outgas something nasty, or in general not be "food-grade"?
Also, that's an *awful* lot of salt in your dough recipe. According to Wolfram Alpha you've got 120% of the recommended maximum daily salt/sodium amount in *each* of your two pizza bases! (Plus extra from cheese, sauce, *sausage*, etc.) Yikes!
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2.5+tsp+salt
For my dough I generally use around 1 tsp to 1.25 tsp salt to 600g (3+ cups) of flour.
Looks delicious, though! 8-S
If they were put on the stove top for example, with a metal diffuser underneath perhaps they would heat up quicker using conduction, than with just ambient heat inside the oven. I would guess that 5 mins on the stove top would use less energy than 45 in an oven. Might crack the stones, would need some testing to see if it is actually more efficient... just a suggestion.
But PLEASE, It is not about either enjoying cooking OR eating sticks and live in caves. But perhaps we can think about how we can reduce WASTE of energy if there are more efficient processes we can use.
You seriously need to find out how much energy is used by a single cargo vessel on the ocean, or how much power is required to melt all those cans you have been recycling, do you know what a carbon heating rod is?
All the ovens in the United States do not come even close to the above, goeddiegogogo.
Did you actually read what was said above? I am not suggesting anybody reduce their standard of living, or stop enjoying their instructable stonebaked pizza, so i don't really understand what the fuss is about...
I was talking about a way to do EXACTLY the same thing, using a little bit less energy. Is that something you need to get upset about, or is that infringing your right as an American oven owner to do whatever you want?
You can go on blaming 'The Man' and his ships and for that reason you should leave your oven on all day, i mean, why not? Recycling a can uses energy, so why shouldn't you waste as much as you want?
Also, do most of my pizza making in the winter when the house is colder anyway and you'll be recycling the energy sort of back into the house. When I need pizza in the summer?
I do it outside on the grill.
Also, I keep these things in there 24/7 as it dosen't seem to take any longer to heat up my oven or affect any other cooking times. I just place them on the bottom of the oven and they are just there.
"sarkasm on"
Of course, we old hippies know for at least 30 years, that conserving energy makes sense. We got some good laughs for it...
But since i would kill for a good pizza, there are better (less deadly) ways to conserve energy...
"sarkasm off"
I use a pizza stone in my little electric oven. I heat it up to 300°C / 570°F, which is the maximum of my oven.
While heating up, i use upper and lower heat. While baking, i use lower heat and convection. This way, i get a crisp crust without burning the toppings.
In my setup, i don't need the upper tiles, except if i wanted a bigger thermal mass.
In my wood fired pizza oven, i like to have the oven floor around 340°C / 644°F. While heating up, the temperature can go over 550°C / 1022°F, which is the upper limit of my IR-thermometer.
With 2.5 metric tons, we don't need to talk about thermal mass here...
Some things, i changed on my hunt for a perfect Margherita.
Use only a pinch of yeast for the dough and give it 4-6 hours to rise. If it doubles too early for your timing, refrigerate it.
(I only use flour, water, salt, olive oil and yeast. Makes perfect Grissinis from leftover dough as well.)
For the cheese, i use a "pizza/gratin-mix" (it's a mix of mozzarella and Greyerz cheese here) as a base and then some Taleggio. This knocks your socks off.
After reading the pizza book from Peter Reinhart, i started to experiment with uncooked tomatoe sauces.
What i do now:
I lightly sautee some finely cut onion and garlic in olive oil. When the onions are glassy, i add the liquid part of the canned tomatoes.(I let the liquids drip out in a sieve before)
I add some tomatoe puree and let most of the liquids evaporate. When this cooled down a little, i add the canned tomatoes, herbs, spices and salt. In the end, i add a very small amount of ground fresh lemon skin and some lemon juice. This adds a wonderful freshness to the sauce.
I add cut basil leaves only after baking, they loose most of the aroma in the oven.
I also want to second the author.
It's important not to overload this type of pizza. The crust should be in the range <= 1/6" thick when backed.
It's intended to be a pizza, not a stew on bread.
I have some pizza-related instructables as well...
This is how it looked like last saturday...
Family favorite is Smoked salmon (even the kids that normally detest seafood) see recipe at my blog:
http://w6lsn.com/blog/2010/04/smoked-salmon-pizza/
again, great article!
I cook on the gas grill outside in summer; Even winter sometimes if I want to add wood chip flavor. With all burners on HIGH I can get well over 600F.
In both cases, I turn the heat down once pizzas are in place. This is because family prefers slightly thicker crust and it burns before it cooks through at the higher temps.
Lots of ideas at my blog -> http://w6lsn.com/blog search for "pizza" This is overall an Excellent article!!
2) Now I'm hungry for pizza.
3) Sending this to my friends and daughter.
Thumbs up! - Jerry
Using full thickness bricks takes about 20-30 minute preheat. For thin pie set oven to highest it goes, (550 in American Made Gas Fired Ovens).
dough should be aged at least 5 hours in refrigerator (cut to size first then left as ball or flattened into disc, rubbed with OOil), I prefer 8 hours.
This relaxes the gluten so it stretches easily, dough should be a very wet one as shown in this recipe.
sauces in MOST pizzerias are not cooked at all, they are canned crushed tomato with a few small number of spices. A fast sprinkle of Oregano and cheese (parmesano reggiano cause it is cheap), then mozzerella and that is it (unless you want specialty stuff).
My Ggrandmother from Sicily never ever put Mozzerrella on her pie , but would dot it with bits of it for children and grand children.
For an Italian American kid of th e50's/60's this was a fancy version of opening the sauce pot and dipping a good piece of eyetalian bread in it. In my home that would warrant a wack. If you want bread and sauce USE A SPOON, cuz dad would flip if the bread blob fell in and it landed on his pasta.
Oh and you can line your gas grill with the same bricks and make pies!
I have made Apple and Pear pies on my webber rgill using this method!
Great Instructable
chin chin
You roll out the dough to about half of the size that you want then let grab the edges and stretch it out to the proper size.
The thickness isn't as consistent as tossing but you end up with a similar effect without making a mess on your ceiling :)