Homemade Pizza "Margarita"
16 servings
20 minutes
Pizza is cooked at high temperatures, and it is impossible to achieve restaurant quality in a regular home stove. But this recipe was created especially for home use, and we really liked it.
1
Pour wheat flour into a large container, add salt, sugar, and olive oil. It's better to use refined oil rather than extra virgin to avoid strong odors in the dough. Then pour in 250 ml of room temperature water and start mixing — a mixer with a hook attachment is needed. The dough should be kneaded at low speeds. After starting the kneading process, add the yeast. However, they should not be added with salt; otherwise, they won't work effectively. First mix the dough until it's smooth and free of lumps before adding the yeast and continue kneading until the dough becomes elastic.
- Wheat flour: 500 g
- Salt: 8 g
- Sugar: 15 g
- Olive oil: 40 ml
- Water: 250 ml
- Dry yeast: 4 g
2
Lightly knead the prepared dough by hand and divide it into pieces weighing about 200 grams. This size is just right for a pizza that will be cooked in a home oven. Form the dough into balls — pizza balls. From the total amount of dough, four such balls are obtained. Place this dough in plastic bags so that the yeast can start working. Food wrap is not suitable for this as it will tear when the pizza ball starts to rise. Set the dough aside for one to one and a half hours.
3
Prepare the mozzarella: cut it into pieces the same thickness as the dough so that the cooking time of the dough matches the melting time of the cheese. If this rule is followed, mozzarella will stretch — and that's what everyone always waits for. Mozzarella stretches when it is not overcooked.
- Mozzarella Cheese for Pizza: 500 g
4
Sprinkle some flour on the table. Take the dough ball out of the bag. Stretch the dough ball into a circle with your hands; it's not difficult: first flatten it to make a pizza disc, then stretch from the center to the edges. Once the pizza base is formed, let it rest for a minute, then stretch the dough a bit more and remove any excess flour.
- Wheat flour: 500 g
5
Take a wooden board and generously sprinkle it with flour - this will serve as a substitute for a pizza peel. Lay the crust on it: this is what the pizza base is called after the pizza dough has been rolled out. Evenly spread one and a half tablespoons of pizza sauce over the crust. Distribute cheese on the pizza so that it ends up on every future slice. Here's a simple method: first place the cheese in a cross pattern, then add pieces to the sectors between the resulting lines.
- Tomato sauce for pizza: 100 ml
- Mozzarella Cheese for Pizza: 500 g
6
Of course, the best for baking is a pizza stone, but if you don't have one - no worries. You can take a regular baking tray, wrap it in parchment paper, turn it upside down and place it in the oven. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. It's best in convection mode with both lower and upper heating elements on; this is needed to increase the heating area. Carefully transfer the pizza from the board to the tray and bake for 5 minutes.
7
Take the ready pizza out of the oven, place it on a plate, and carry it to the table. The pizza is ready to eat, but it's better to add a bit of dried herbs, just sprinkle some oregano or a mix of Italian herbs.
- Oregano: to taste