I guess most of you know that there’s nothing much to homemade pizza, except that it can be time consuming. You can put pretty much anything on it, and cover it with cheese and you can call it pizza. A while back I made some yummy pizzas and I remembered to take photos, so in case you need some inspiration, here are the two kinds I made. Remember, your options are limitless!
First you start of with a good crust. I’m currently searching for a better crust than the one I’ve got, but you can search here for a crust recipe that takes your fancy. We don’t like thick crust, like Chicago-style, and absolutely love thin and crispy crusts, like New York-style pizza. I haven’t found the perfect one yet, but I’m working on it!
So, you need the dough, some tomato puree or tomato paste, and a good assortment of meat and/or vegetables like mushrooms, peppers, onions, olives and the like.
I also had some left-over chicken from a roast chicken which I used on a pizza with a cream cheese and apricot jam mixture (just mix together chunky apricot jam with plain cream cheese until you get a good saucy consistency) and red onions, topped with mozzarella cheese.
This is the chicken pizza, cooked.
For my more traditional pizza, I covered it with tomato paste, and topped it with salami, mushrooms, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella and grated mozzarella, along with a good sprinkling of oregano and fresh pepper.
And the cooked result. Nothing quite beats bubbly browned cheese!
Yum. What are your favourite pizza crusts and toppings?
Comments (6)
pizza dough, for 2 pizzas: 1 1/3 cups warm water, 1 pkg. dry yeast, 1 tsp.salt, 4 tablespoons olive oil, 4 cups (plus extra for kneading) AP flour. If you want it very thin & crispy, reduce the water to 1 1/8 cups, and the flour to 3 cups. Bloom the yeast in the water, add remaining ingredients, knead till elastic & smooth, let rise in olive oil-greased bowl. Punch down, divide, let rest, shape, top with goodies & bake in uber hot oven. Fav toppings? Marinara, fresh mozzarella & 3 kinds of fresh mushrooms, please!
Thanks for that recipe, Hilary! I can’t wait to try it, SOON!
I see your son doesn’t take after you in the mushroom department! :-)
So, out of interest, does this recipe not have any sugar?
We enjoyed thick and thin crusts - as long as the bottom is crispy. We’ve not had much success with crispiness except when we use our (oops, Rachael’s!) pizza stone. After the second short rising, bake the dough for 7 or so minutes in a very hot oven on a sheet of baking paper on top of the stone, with the tomato sauce mixture spread on it. Then add the rest of the toppings and finish baking.
For the sauce, we use a cooked mixture of 3 T. olive oil, 1-2 cloves garlic, 2 tins tomatoes, 1/2 t. salt, and 1 t. oregano. (This is enough for at least two pizzas.) It’s a bit of extra work, but worth it compared to the paste or ketchup that I used to use. Actually it’s just great with plain basil leaves and mozzarella cheese!
No. I don’t. I’m the black sheep of the family in that department.
Bubbly, browned cheese…..!!!!!!!!! Definitely don’t need sugar in the crust; we’ve never done it that way. Broccoli can be good in moderation with a whole lot of other toppings. I know your whole post is about homemade pizza, but there’s a new chain here that makes a really good pizza that you then take home and bake to taste. Either thick or thin crusts, stuffed crust (as in the whole pizza between two crusts with a few more toppings on the outside), and a great range of toppings…bacon, artichoke hearts, couple types of onions, garlic-y white sauce, tomato sauce, chicken, etc., etc. They have standard combos, but you can tweak to taste. Also, doesn’t seem to be nearly as greasy as other bought pizza and has a way better crust than, say, Papa Johns. But then our family loves their crust.