Pizza

We all love it.

I can live on it.

It's simple and super easy to make.

Easier is to buy.

Hard to the find perfect recipe for the dough though but, when you find it once, then stick with it like I did.

This is a recipe for a perfect pizza dough.

Prep. time:40-50 min (including time for dough to rest)
Bake time:10-15 min 

Ingredients:

• 25 g brewer's yeast or 1 tbs dry yeast
• 350 ml warm water
• 500 g flour
• 1 tbs salt
• just a lil bit of sugar
• 2 spoons of olive oil
• topping (cheese, ham, bacon, salami, paprika, oregano, olives,  mushrooms, tomato, creme fraiche (or what ever you like to put on dough))

Preparation:

    -Dough-    

• Take a small bowl, add warm water, 1 tbs flour, a lil bit of sugar and yeast in it and stir to dissolve it.
• Leave it for 5-10 minutes or less, but just enough till your yeast starts to make bubbles.
• In a larger bowl add flour, make a small hole in the middle of it and add your melted yeast with water.
• Add olive oil and salt. Draw the ingredients together. Mix with hands a lil bit to form a dough. Then leave it for 30 minutes on a warm place in your kitchen. 30 minutes will be enough for the dough to double in volume.
• Sprinkle some flour on the working space, take your dough and cut it on 3 or 4 small buns. Mix it with flour just a lil bit, enough so not to be sticky.
• Take one bun and with a rolling pin and your hands shape it like you want.

• Place shaped dough in the pan. Use non sticky paper if you like. I do, it's very practical. :)
• You can use this dough to make calzone. It's perfect! 

    -Topping-   
The best part of making pizza. 

After I did some pizza research, I've found that the perfect pizza taste, after making the dough, is actually your topping. If you wonder is there something special about it, then yes, there is.
The secret of good taste lies in the order of placing your topping ingredients on your perfect dough. It's not "just put everything that you have and bake it". No, no. If you want to enjoy your pizza as I do, then you should know what you like :).

For example, I like to feel the dough on the pizza.

And because of that, I don't like to place tomato (ketchup or fresh, canned tomato, tomato juice etc.) directly on dough, because it has a very strong taste and it will dominate on the pizza and cover all the nice flavors, and this is why I chose not to put tomato first on my pizza dough, as many people do. Also, it can make dough more wet than necessary.  (This is just my opinion and my taste)

Instead, I like using Creme fraiche or olive oil 

which is a perfect choice to be the first thing that will make contact with your dough.

It will make it soft and give it a very nice basic taste for the rest that will come. If you add creme fraiche, place it in very tiny layer, same do with olive oil.

Cheese is coming next for a few reasons. It will melt enough and cover all dough, and both olive oil and creme fraiche are a good combo with cheese, and it won't get too dry or burn like if you put it on top. It will bind all the ingredients from the top also and it will let them bake nicely.

During my pizza research I've found that this is a perfect combo for homemade pizza when you don't have the special pizza oven with really high temperatures, where pizza is baked after only 3-5 minutes. Home oven usually has maximum 250 C degrees, and this is the temperature that will bake your pizza perfect like the professional oven in pizzerias, and won't dry it because you will  bake it in 10-15 minutes.

Lil bit of oregano on the cheese is my next step. Then comes ham or bacon and fresh paprika, lil bit tomato juice here and there or ketchup, but just in a small drops (I will add it on the pizza slice later if I want just for a taste). I don't need anything else on the pizza, but sometimes, like today, I add mushrooms and extra feta cheese just to give it a richer taste.

Place it in the oven and bake it for 10-15 min on 250 C degrees.

And your pizza is ready :)


You can use whatever you like as topping, as I said. Some people like only dough with olive oil and oregano and maybe cheese, some like onion on it...but everything is just a matter of taste and everything is acceptable.
You don't need a special occasion to make pizza. This is an every day snack, meal, you can make it healthier if you use more veggies (cucumber, spinach, peas, canned corn...) and some fruits :). It's all about your taste and ideas.

Before baking

Enjoy :)

After baking