Brickoven-Style Pizza at Home

This will probably be the yummiest, easiest pizza you have ever made. Not a cook? No worries! Just keep reading, beginner tips will be included to the greatest (reasonable) extent possible.

Step 1: Ingredients and Tools

Dough:

Flour
Water
Vegetable Oil
Yeast
Sugar

Pizza Toppings:

Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Pizza Sauce
Pepperoni
Canadian Bacon
Pineapple
Or Any of your Favorite Toppings

Tools:

Cutting Board
Something to Mix the Dough (I used my trusty Cuisinart Mixer)
Something Round to Cut the Dough (I used the Cuisinart Mixer Lid)
Rolling Pin
Glass or Microwaveable Bowl for the Water
Paint Brush for the Sauce (Optional)
Flat Pan to put on the Grill (Optional)
Grill

Step 2: How to Make the Dough/Crust

Put 1-2 teaspoons of yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1and 1/2 cups of water in a microwave-safe container.  Stir gently and microwave for about a minute.

Note: While the microwaving of yeast is not necessary, it does insure that your yeast is good and the warmth makes the dough easier to roll.

When it is done microwaving, set a lid or plate on top and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  You should see yeasty bubbles rising to the top.  Mix yeast water with 2 cups of flour.  Pour 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil on top and mix again.  Now it should be the consistency of dough.  If it is too runny, add small increments of flour and mix.  If it is too thick, add a little water or oil.

Flour your surface (cutting board) lightly with flour or corn meal and place the dough on it.  Flatten as possible with your hands, and then roll it out with your rolling pin.

Now cut it into the proper shape.  While you could do this with a knife, scissors, or even your hands, I prefer to do it with a nice round lid for consistency.  Remember that you are making this on the grill, so it will probably be easier to make small pizzas.  If you do it like I do, place your lid/whatever-you-use in the corner of your rolled dough and press down firmly.  You may need to jiggle it from side to side or in a circular motion to get the dough to let go.  Now pick up your dough slice and place it on your pan or on the table.  Make as many more of these as you will need.  One batch of dough will probably make about 6-8 6-inch pizza crusts.  You may have to make more dough.

Step 3: Pizza Toppings

You can use (basically) anything you want for this step.  I use the following ingredients:

Pizza Sauce
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Pepperoni
Pineapple
Canadian Bacon

Start by using your paintbrush (or spoon or whatever) to spread the pizza sauce on your crusts.  Then sprinkle the cheese on top. 

Now for your other toppings.  For pepperoni, place them on the pizzas, or chop them up and sprinkle them on your cheese.  For Canadian bacon and pineapple, again, you can simply place them or, as I prefer, chop the pineapple and Canadian bacon and sprinkle on the cheese.

Step 4: Grill the Pizza

Turn your grill on high and place your pizza pan on the on the grill.  Cook for about 20 minutes, but don't leave it unattended for too long.  The trick to brick oven pizza on the grill is to leave the grill lid on as much as possible.  So don't leave your pizza alone, but don't lift the lid more than necessary.

Step 5: Serve

Take off the grill and serve your delicious brick oven pizza that you easily made on the grill!

Comments

[CaptInsane]

Twice I've tried to make dough (once was from a box), and I don't think I'm cut out for it. This is a great instructable, very easy to understand. However, I ran into issues. I think first most was that I tried mixing it by hand with a whisk; should'a busted out my stand mixer, I guess. Then, it was too liquidy, but for some reason I couldn't get it thicker adding flour. So like an idiot, I got frustrated and just threw it on my board to start working it more, dumped some flour in, and ended up with a sticky mess.

I dumped it onto my grill (on a pizza stone, more on this in a moment). I let it cook a while, but the top got all burned and overcooked without the middle cooking (not sure what I did here). Then, my pizza stone cracked: a whole side broke off! On another site, people said it was probably too thin and shouldn't have been used on the direct heat of a grill.

[Hello Kitty]

Oh dear.

I'm going to start with your problem with the whisk. I really should have mentioned that you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER want to use a whisk to mix dough. NEVER EVER. You can stir by hand, sure, but only if you don't use a whisk. You could, for example use a spoon. Or a hairbrush. Or anything other than a whisk. I find a stand mixer or an electronic hand mixer without the whisk attachment works best. (I was kidding about the hairbrush)

I'm not sure why it wouldn't thicken when you added flour, except maybe because you added WAY too much water. I find it works best to add the water a little at a time - after I've added the flour. And usually for me, the water to flour ratio is 2:1 - that is, for every cup of water, use about 2 cups of flour - or maybe even a little less water so that I can add oil.

Also, I don't like pizza stones. They're heavy, easy to drop/break, and wouldn't work well on my grill. So I guess what I'm saying is this: next time, don't use a pizza stone. I didn't, don't, and don't plan to. And, as far as I know, you can really use anything (other than a pizza stone - catching my drift yet?) that you would use in your oven. Though I don't recommend using anything you would be sad about if it broke. I'm definitely not guaranteeing that it won't.

I'd like to assure you that you are "cut out" to make pizza. I mean, if I can make it, anyone can. Please try it again and let me how it goes! And if you have any more problems, I'll be glad to try to help you with any questions.

[ARJOON]

any alternative to Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, this way too expensive in Mauritius!!!! About $15/100g

[Hello Kitty]

Sure, any cheese you prefer will work. Not sure how much you'll like it, but any cheese you would use on regular pizza will work on brickoven/grill pizza.

[bguilford]

You have inspired me to get out into my backyard and keep working on my pizza oven! I don't think my little itsy bitsy electric oven is up to this task!

[Oldbear]

Another tip is to cook/BBQ/grill the dough a bit (I do this until it justs starts to brown) before you put your toppings on. If we are BBQing pizza I'll grill the one side first and then put the toppings on the cooked side - then grill the whole thing. This works great while camping also... in fact I think this will be our Saturday night dinner this long weekend. Great instructable by the way...

[Hello Kitty]

Thanks! :)

[willrandship]

You should put the big box either behind all the other boxes or in a corner, because right now it covers half the tools and ingredients.

[Hello Kitty]

Thanks for the suggestion! Done!

[mcgtr]

yes peale, i agree. an unglazed or quarry tile is a perfect pizza stone. i preheat mine for 10 mins (along with the oven), throw some cornmeal on it, and turn my pizza onto it. makes a great crust. michel

[Avatar-IT]

Careful about using tiles for pizza stone - many of them may contain LEAD in the glaze! I have done it in the past in my quest for the perfect pizza crust (still working on it!), but once I found out about the lead I gave tiles up. I sprung for a real pizza stone on cooking.com.

[Peale]

Unglazed quarry stones (marble, soapstone) are perfect and are far cheaper than store bought "baking stones".

[leanne_martinau]

Crikey! No wonder you North Americans have such an obesity problem. There is no need to add sugar to your bread and dough recipes as the yeast will feed on the grain starches. Any added sugar beefs up the empty calories of your daily intake and goes straight to your fat cells if you can't burn it off. You can enjoy healthier dough products without the diabetes risk.... Cheers, Leanne down under

[Peale]

We're not talking a lot of sugar here - I personally use 1 tbs per recipe, and that makes two large pizzas. Sometimes I substitute malt syrup instead of sugar. And cane sugar is so much better for you than a lot of things. High fructose corn syrup is one of the big reasons Americans have a weight problem, due to how your body handles it. It also depends on how long you're going to allow your dough to rise. A chilled rise in the icebox would develop flavour and not need that sugar, but a quick rise on the counter probably needs that boost.

[faelenor]

That's funny because in Canada, bacon is bacon like in USA! "Canadian bacon" is really back bacon.

[Oldbear]

or the title of a great John Candy movie...

[bowman]

Thanks, I love homemade pizza, etc. I've been making pizza at home for many years........I would never use a MW to heat water.........tap water is fine, given there is not an excess of chemicals. Also as a reader mentioned already, using tiles will give you a much better crust. I have a large, shallow pan lined with 4 X 8 inch tiles that works great. Just dust it with corn meal first, before putting pizza on it. I would like to hear if you try this. Good Luck!

[aaronscottaugustinhotmail.com]

Im not sure if this was intentional but anyways, in the first step it sounds like you are microwaving the yeast in the water. You dont want to do that because yeast is actually an organism and microwaving it will kill it thus effecting the CO2 production that makes your awesome crust fluffy :) Great instructable by the way +5!

[Hello Kitty]

Thanks! Actually, I do. While some prefer to add the yeast after the water is warm, I have found a method that seems to work well for me - putting the yeast in before microwaving it. Microwaving it activates the yeast - I don't microwave it long enough to kill the yeast. I should mention though, that this is not necessary - it only insures that your yeast is still alive and active.

[l8nite]

those do look tasty and the dough is right on. Personally I dont like using a metal tray, you can get a large terracota floor tile or paving stone for a few dollars at the bigbox homestore or find a local granite retailer and get a sink cutout again for just a few dollars. bring the stone up to temp and sprinkle cornmeal on it before laying the pizza on top