There is something so peaceful about making pizza dough. It takes over a day to make, but it is something you watch grow, take care of it and in the end enjoy it, the whole process just brings joy. In San Diego we don’t have the strongest pizza scene. There are some good places, but when you want great pizza, you have to go to your roots, the kitchen.
This is Philadelphia style pizza, so it’s cooked at high temp, on a pizza stone and is done in under ten minutes. This is one of the few homemade pizzas that matches my attention span and blows my taste buds out of the water. Be careful with this recipe though, the dough will reflect the quality of olive oil used, so use the best you have. I go to a local vineyard that is also an olive grove that presses their own oil, and it makes me giddy when I eat this pizza.
If you have not made a lot of pizza like this, get used to using your oven for a few minutes and then turning on the broiler. You want the cheese to get the crispy brown, and the crust to be fully cooked so it can hold it’s own to the toppings. I have honestly screwed up this recipe any way you can name, so most of what you are going to read is learning from my mistakes, so please learn away at my expense!
This is actually really simple, the sauce is just a few ingredients, the pizza dough is simple, and from there on out, it’s just cheese and toppings.
The toppings for this are simple, what do you like? My partner eats pepperoni-only pizza (not the craziest), whereas I’ll do whatever I can get my hands on. My personal favorite is prosciutto with a fresh arugula salad. I’ve made this for a few people and because it’s so simple they just fall in love. Again this is a great way to impress a date, do something together, and eat the joy you two just put in the oven!
This is by far my favorite recipe to do and all because I was on an airplane reading about a future food book and I pre-ordered it a whim. This is from the book Pizza Camp by Joe Beddia. Amazing book and I tweak just a few things from what he did, but overall that book was inspiring, and I highly recommend buying it if you want to read someone who is down to earth talk about making something he loves.
Best Pizza in the World
Ingredients
Dough
- 1.5 cups cool water
- 2 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp high quality olive oil
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose floor
- 1 ¼ tbsp fine sea salt
Sauce
- 2 tbsp high quality olive oil
- 28 oz crushed tomatoes
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 ½ tsp fine salt
Toppings (per pizza)
- 2 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
- 3 slices Prosciutto
- good quality fresh parmesan to grate on top
- Italian dried oregano
Instructions
Dough
- Add the water and sugar together in a metal bowl, stir.1.5 cups cool water, 2 tsp sugar
- Add yeast and stir again, wait one minute.½ tsp active dry yeast
- Add the olive oil and stir.1 tbsp high quality olive oil
- In a Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough blade (speed 2), start slowly adding the flour (do not add the salt yet) until fully mixed, take about 5 minutes.3 ½ cups all-purpose floor
- Once mixed, cover bowl with plastic wrap for 30 minutes or until elastic.
- Wet your hands, add salt on top of dough and kneed it in, in the bowl.1 ¼ tbsp fine sea salt
- Cover with plastic wrap again and refrigerate for 24 hours.
- When ready, take out of the fridge and put dough ball on a well-floured surface. Fold the dough into a ball by grabbing the slides and having them match. Do that and rotate and do again, when dough is a big ball flip over and repeat.
- I cut the dough in thirds and do step 8 again to have even dough masses. Your ball should be completely smooth before making the pizza. (here you can refrigerate the unused portions for another day, but this dough does not freeze)
Sauce
- Put crushed tomatoes in a Tupperware.28 oz crushed tomatoes
- Add additional ingredients and mix.2 tbsp high quality olive oil, 4 cloves garlic, 1 ½ tsp fine salt
- Refrigerate for 24 hours before using.
Making the pizza
- Preheat oven with pizza stone to its highest temp (mine is 550F), the stone should be about 2 inches from the top.
- On a well-floured surface start stretching the dough ball into a circle. You are looking for the typical pizza look. I stretch it, put my hands in a fist and let it stretch down your arm. Each third of the dough ball should make a 12-14 inch pizza. The center should be thin and crusts a little puffy and thicker. Once I get as much out of the fist technique I put it back on the counter and grab from the center and pull out, all the way around it until I reach what I want.
- Transfer the pizza to a peel.
- Sauce by using a ladle, put the sauce in the center and with some pressure make a spiral out until you have about a half an inch of crust left.
- Add a base layer of cheese (about half of what you will use).2 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
- When topping the pizza, if you are using JUST sliced meats, add the other half of your cheese and put the sliced meats on top. (if you are doing more then just sliced meats, add topping then cheese, be careful not to over top). I did just prosciutto, 3 slices.
- Throw pizza into the oven (with the peel you should be able to just shake it right on the stone). Bake for 4 minutes.
- After 4 minutes turn on the broiler and broil it the last 4 minutes (until cheese is very brown and crust beyond golden).
- Remove and sprinkle with Italian oregano and a little circle of good olive oil. Grate fresh Parmesan on all pizzas, it is important that it is good quality.Italian dried oregano
- Cut and enjoy.
Notes
