Who doesn’t love a good slice of pizza?? 🙂 Especially homemade pizza with homemade pizza dough? Not many people go through the trouble of making their own pizza dough, but it can be very rewarding! There’s nothing more satisfying than having a good fresh slice of pizza watching your favourite movie with a pitcher of cold beer (or wine!!) The best thing about homemade pizza is that everyone in the family can choose their own topping and have a personalized pizza!
My husband and I like to use leftover tortilla wraps for a quick and easy pizza in the weekend. We loved how easy it was and he can have his favourite toppings and I can have mine… and even better it was a good way to get rid of left overs in the fridge too!
I love thin crust pizza! It’s always been my favourite. I love the crispy edges and bottom, and the soft chewy middle! I’ve tried different recipes and end up with a soggy crust, or the edges aren’t crusty enough… they are soft like bread. Some of the recipes yielded dry and tough crusts.
That is until I found this life saving recipe! All credit goes to Peter Reinhart, whose recipe I found on 101 cookbooks. Ever since I found this recipe, it has become my go-to recipe for beautiful, perfect pizza every time! It has never failed me yet. The recipe is at the bottom of this post.
The recipe calls for olive oil, but I used vegetable oil because I always have it handy. I have used olive oil too and it does add the flavour of the olive oil into the dough. I recommend using olive oil if you do like the taste of it, or go for the vegetable oil if you prefer pizza dough without any added flavour.
One of the reasons this is my favourite is because it’s so easy to make. I add all the ingredients into the mixer bowl and let it mix, scraping the sides and bottom a few times to ensure proper kneading. The smell of fresh dough just fills our apartment and when it is perfectly smooth and sticky, you turn it over to a floured board and just give it a few kneads to smooth it out (truth be told, I like the stress relief aspect of kneading dough… seriously? who doesn’t love kneading fresh dough?? which is reason number Two)
Reason Three is how handy it is to have around. I usually freeze the portions in freezer bags and keep them for when I need it, but always keep two portions in the fridge letting it rest for 3 days to be used. Then when I know Ill be needing some pizza I transfer portions into the fridge overnight, or keep outside in the morning.
The pizza dough is unbelievably soft and easy to roll out. I like mine super thin, but you can keep it a little thick too.
This brings me to reason Four! Versatility!! Thin crust pizza, pan crust pizza, Calzones, even bread rolls! Tomato based pizza, white pizza, burgers (as bread rolls), vegetarian, non-vegetarian, breakfast, lunch, dinner… need I go on?
My favourite topping is a salsa tomato sauce base with chilli chicken and cheese. I use chicken breast slices that I pre cook. My husband loves pepperoni on his. I also absolutely love white pizza with eggs cracked on it, that cook while the pizza is being cooked, served with bacon and salad… perfect for breakfast and brunch, maybe with a side of garlic breadsticks to boot!
Cook the pizza till the cheese is nice and golden (on a pre-heated pizza stone for best results). If you are cooking multiple pizzas, I found that I have to switch the pizzas (top to bottom, vice versa) half way through. With the pizza stone, this shouldn’t be required as the stone will retain a lot of the heat and cook the bottom of the pizza and crisp it up.
I like cooking the dough as a roll sometimes. This is great because it shows the texture of the dough and how crispy but soft it is. It makes for a good dinner roll.
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