This is an extended version of Brian’s Pizza Recipe, which, because I’m a dumbass I fucked up a few times, with some amendments also from my brother who linked it to me. It also specifically describes toppings I like. It uses wet mozzarella, which is a little trickier but makes everything tastier, moister and chewier.
Ingredients for 2
- 250g 00 Flour
- Mutti Pizza Sauce Aromatica
- ¼ cup Warm water
- ½ cup Cool water
- ¼ teaspoon Active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon Granulated sugar
- Bag of Arugula / Rocket
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Olives in Brine
- Wet Mozzarella
- Proscutto di Parma (parma ham)
- Some MSG (optional)
Tools
- Stand mixer¹ with paddle blade and dough hook
- Pizza Peel
- Ladle or spoon
- Pizza Stone
- Sandwich Bags and / or clingfilm
- 2 Bowls
- Sharp knife
- Cup measures / teaspoon measures
- Towel (optional)
- Aluminium Pizza Pan (optional)²
- Dough cutter (optional)
¹: Not essential, but it’s a lot more work without it, especially for consistency.
²: I am pretty sure you can do without this, but it’s useful for shaping the pizza.
Prep Time
- 20 mins making the dough
- 2 hours first proving
- 24 hours second proving (minimum 12h)
- (you can keep it for quite a while in the fridge here)
- 1 hour 30 mins for oven to heat and dough to warm
- 10 mins baking
Method
Ingredients in bold type, timings in italic type.
Making the Dough
About 20 mins of work.
- In a bowl, add ¼ cup Warm water, ¼ teaspoon Active dry yeast and ½ teaspoon Granulated sugar. Dissolve them together thoroughly, mixing with a fork.
- In the bowl of the standing mixer, add ½ cup Cool water, 1 teaspoon of salt and the water, yeast and sugar mixture. If you’re using some MSG, chuck a bit in there too to give the dough a more full-bodied flavour.
- With the mixer on slow with the paddle blade, add about ⅓ (83g) of the flour.
- Mix at increasing speed for at least a minute until it forms a smooth batter or runny custard like consistency. If the mixture doesn’t thicken up to that consistency, just add a bit more flour.
- On a slow speed, add, bit by bit, add the remaining flour.
- Once the mixture starts to gather into a dough, stop the mixer and cut the nascent dough off the paddle blade with a sharp knife. Swap out for the dough hook and run on medium speed for 8–10 minutes.
- Lightly oil a bowl with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Transfer the dough into the bowl, and cover it with clingfilm or a large sandwich bag. Put in a warm place for 1 hour 30 mins.
- Remove the dough from the bowl, and cut in two with a dough cutter or large knife. Put each ball of dough in its own sandwich bag, or wrap in clingfilm. It should be air tight!
- Place in the fridge, potentially wrapped with a towel in case it gets too cold / freezes for 24 hours. Can do 12 hours instead (I did this by accident a few times) and its nearly the same. You can keep it in the fridge for a good long while until you feel like pizza
Cooking the Pizza
About 10 mins of work.
- One and a half hours before making pizza, remove the dough (as many balls as you want pizzas) from the fridge and put the oven on its highest possible temperature with the pizza stone on a shelf in the middle. Remove any wire shelves that might be above it, they’ll make it harder!
- Lightly flour a pizza pan, dish, or plate. Don’t get too conservative with the flour though!
- Hold the dough between your thumb and forefinger and let its weight stretch it out. As it does so, move your hands along the dough to try to stretch it into a rough circle, changing your grip to hold and thus stretch the thicker parts of the dough. Ah, fuck, it doesn’t look like a circle that much. Don’t worry about it.
- Put the dough into the pan, dish, or plate. using your thumb and forefinger again, try to stretch out the thicker bits of the dough so that it naturally covers the plate. Be aware of the dough sticking, and if it sticks to the dish, sneak some flour under there. You’ll know if you have more than enough if the dough no longer picks up flour from under it.
- This is your last reasonable chance to make sure the pizza isn’t sticking to the dish. Pick up the dish and tip it at about a 20° angle. It should slip all in one go. If it doesn’t, put more flour under it.
- Using a ladle or spoon, put a bit of Pizza sauce on the pizza. Then, using the back of the spoon or ladle, spread it out so it’s a thin layer. Repeat until there’s a thin layer over the whole pizza. Careful around the edges — you don’t want any sauce running off and burning in the oven.
- Roughly tear some of the Parma Ham and put it on top of the sauce.
- Take some Olives from the jar (it kinda sucks, but with a fork) and put them on top of the pizza. Try not to let too much brine get on the dough as this will make it stick. It tastes good so don’t worry too much about it either!
- The dough should be topped, and it should be possible to slide the dough off the plate / pizza pan without it sticking. You have been warned!
- Lightly flour the pizza peel and place the pizza on top of it.
- This needs to be done quickly, so that the mozzarella doesn’t soak into the dough too much and make it stick to the peel: roughly tear some fairly large chunks off the mozzarella, about the size of a plum tomato, and put it on top of the pizza. About 3 chunks, evenly spaced is usually good.
- You are still working against the clock here! Pick up the pizza on the peel and open the oven. You’re aiming to put the pizza right in the middle of the stone, without too much heat loss from the oven. Put the bottom edge of the peel around the bottom edge of the pizza stone, and tip it so the pizza slides onto the stone. As you do, withdraw the peel. Close the oven.
- Relax! Let the pizza cook on the stone. It should be a bit crispy, but clearly still soft. You’ll see the ham crisping up due to the Malliard Reaction, a highly technical chemical process that makes food taste fucking great.
- Slide the peel under the pizza. If it’s done, it’ll slide off easily. If it doesn’t, you fucked up. Put it on a plate.
- Take a little bit of Extra Virgin Olive Oil in your hands, and rub it into the Arugula / Rocket. This adds to the flavour, and stops it tasting a bit dry. Put it on the pizza.
- Add pepper to taste and serve!!
Pitfalls
- Don’t try to add a crust to the pizza by leaving lots of thick dough. You can try it, but you will end up with a fucking huge crust. It’ll look like a volcanic lagoon.
- If you want to add more water, be careful! It’s very easy to make it too sticky.
- When adding the rest of the flour, make sure not to run the paddle on fast. You’ll end up with a weird dough.
