Restaurant style pizza, made right at home.
It is so delicious, a thick border, a cheesy crust, you're going to love it!
Hi guys, now remember I have shared with you how to make this pizza a good 10 years ago, but it
has been a very long time since we have done an in-depth, talk-through, restaurant style pizza.
And when I say restaurant style pizza, all I mean by that is a classic, round, thin crust
with a gorgeous border, light and airy. Absolutely delicious, and I'm going to walk you through it.
Very easy and very simple.
You're going to execute this, because I know you can,
because these tips and tricks are going to help you create a beautiful pizza at home.
The real focus here is the dough and sort of the outcome of the whole thing,
but I also show you my very quick tomato sauce that I love to do for pizza as we get through it.
So let's talk dough.
Very simple, you're gonna need all-purpose flour, which I already have in the bowl of my standing
mixer. To this, I'm going to add some sugar. The sugar helps feed the yeast, also helps color the
crust ever so lightly. To the sugar, you're gonna add your yeast now I've said this to you before,
the yeast I use is magical it will make any person that's afraid to work with dough,
it will turn them into a professional.
There is never a time where this yeast does not work. I will have it linked
for you in the description of this video, along with all the things that I'm using
because this to me is key to making sure any dough that requires yeast works beautifully.
It will not frustrate you, it will not make you crazy. I promise. it's going
to work like a charm. I've only added those three things and I'm going to
go ahead and give it a quick little mix let me go get my dough hook attachment.
Okay, now with the speed on low, we are going to stream in some warm water.
Now you'll notice I haven't added any salt just yet, I like to add my salt
once you get the water in you're gonna take some salt. Now I am using fine table salt
today. If I were using a coarse kosher salt, you would use one full tablespoon,
but because I'm using a fine table salt I'm only using two teaspoons and I'm just adding it in here
like so and it's going to take a bit for that flour to get Incorporated.
And what I have here is an additional tablespoon of flour because for some
reason this particular amount takes a little extra flour to get the dough to
come off the sides of the bowl as it mixes which I'll show you once it gets there.
You see how the dough is sort of sticking to the sides of the bowls,
this is where this little tiny bit of flour comes in, it'll help kind of release from the bowl
and then just let it go until it all comes together, which will not take very long.
I have an oiled bowl ready I'm going to sprinkle a little bit more flour.
Looking great. I'm going to speed it up for a second.
Get the dough onto a lightly floured surface, you don't want the dough to be sticky.
You don't want it to be wet, but you do want it to be tacky. Like
you don't want it to be like a wet batter but you want it to be really,
sort of supple like that. And if you just knead a little sprinkle of flour as you go,
avoid adding too much at once because you don't want this to be dense. You want it to be really,
like I said, supple and gorgeous and that is what you're looking at. And by the time you add,
what was that like a tablespoon, all together just to knead it into a ball it's like, look see?
Let me show you. It's smooth and it's gorgeous and it's exactly what we're looking for.
Okay, once that's done you're going to take an oiled bowl, really important that your dough
is in an oiled bowl so that it doesn't form any crusties anywhere. And we're
just going to cover this up with some plastic wrap and you're going to pop
this somewhere warm so that it can rise until it's more than doubled in size.
I'll show you, almost closer to triple in size, and it could take anywhere between
an hour and a half to three hours really depending on the environment. How cold and
drafty it is or your yeast, it could take more it could take less. For me this always
takes about two hours and I put it in my oven with a pilot light on, don't turn the oven on,
and it's like the perfect 105-110 degrees that it needs to proof oh so perfectly.
In the meantime though, while that rests and does its thing,
we are going to make the easiest and quickest like five ingredient tomato sauce that I think
is a perfect canvas for your pizza making so I'm gonna, and then we'll move on the next step.
Alright, to make the sauce, now I really am partial to a no-cook tomato sauce,
but I know not everybody feels the same way so we
are essentially going to make a no-cook sauce but we're gonna cook it, basically.
I would do this with some really good quality tomatoes that I hand crushed and
then I would put a little fresh garlic in there some basil, olive oil, salt,
and a little oregano. But you can do the exact same thing by cooking it and that way you have
a cooked like quick marinara sauce, and it's pretty sublime. Like I said I am very partial to a
simple sauce when it comes to my pizza because that way I have plenty of versatility that doesn't
compete with toppings and whatnot and I just happen to think that this is really delicious.
Fresh garlic, extra virgin olive oil please because we're only using a few ingredients
so we want to make sure that those ingredients are the best we can find. Fresh basil from the garden,
these are my home canned tomatoes I canned them last year and then I have
one jar of just classic passata and then I had a little jar of cherry tomatoes so I'm
adding that in there. Once that starts to sizzle I'm going to add these in.
Oh that smells good.
That smells so good.
I wanted to tell you that Joe corrected me - I'm adding the basil right in - that there is
no such thing as a pilot light pretty much anymore, what I mean is just the
regular light in the oven you know how you can turn the light on to see how things are
baking? You can just leave that on the entire time as it's rising and it warms up the oven.
That's what I meant, so added the basil, now I'm just going to go ahead and add a pinch of salt and
I'm just going to let this cook partially covered for maybe 20 minutes or so and then I'll just turn
it off and let it cool, and then we'll pull the pizza dough out, hello, and we will make pizza.
Dough is looking spectacular, took about two hours for me. Now I'm going to just
add a little flour to my work surface, not a lot you just want to make sure nothing sticks.
I've got a little baking sheet here with some
parchment paper that I just drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil on. Now I'm going to take this dough
and I'm just going to cut it into two because this dough makes two 12 inch pizzas perfectly.
And all you're going to do is you're going to take this ball of dough,
if it's just a little sticky you can add some flour. I know I work fast, but the whole point
to this is to fold it a few times and then just go ahead and knead it into a ball, essentially.
And if it just gets a little bit sticky just feel free to add a touch more flour, but it should
never feel wet, it should just feel slightly tacky. And then at the bottom I just like to
pinch like so. I'll do another one in slow motion for you.
And then you're gonna take this, place it right here,
leave that alone let's work with the second one. I'll do it a little bit slower. When it comes to
dough, you kind of want to work quickly just because you don't want to form any crusties.
But basically, you take your very supple dough, okay, if you were to stretch it out into like a
little disc you take the sides and you fold them together right? Then you take the sides
fold them together, fold them together, see that? Except I do it from the very top
and then it works its way to the bottom.
That's pretty much it.
And now this, very very important that this dough needs to rest for a bit. And what I like
to do is I like to leave it room temperature for 30 minutes, in the fridge for 30 minutes.
You can do this part, you can do this the night before, or just pop it into the fridge overnight
completely and then just let it come to room temperature and let it rise a bit the next day.
But you know I plan on making this tonight so I'm gonna pop this plastic back on top,
like I said 30 minutes room temperature, 30 minutes in the fridge. When it goes into the
fridge you are going to preheat your oven to 550 degrees. If your oven doesn't go up to 550,
it will certainly go up to 500 so do it at 500 but for me it's 550. You're gonna pop a baking
steel or a pizza stone on the lowest rack that your oven goes, you know, the lowest
rack in your oven and you're going to let that preheat for 30 minutes along the oven preheating.
It's pivotal that that oven is extremely hot when you're ready to make your pizza because
it's the heat that's going to give you the rise of that beautiful border it's going to
cook your pizza perfectly, and it's going to give you the most perfect end result.
If you don't have a pizza stone or pizza steel and you're someone that loves making pizza from
home I suggest you invest in one they're not very expensive I will list a few of them in different,
for different budgets in the description box below, but they will take your game to
the next level when it comes to pizza making, and I just want you to have a great result.
If, however, you want to make this tonight and you don't have a pizza steel, you can go ahead and
take two baking sheets, flip them upside down so that they're side by side, and place those on the
bottom of your oven rack on top of your oven rack on the very bottom of the oven and then preheat
those as well I won't give you the exact same result but it will work definitely in a pinch.
I'm gonna let these rest and then I'm gonna preheat the
oven in the meantime and then we rock and roll.
Look how gorgeous, okay, II don't mess around, I do not mess around!
If you feel like after 15-20 minutes on the counter your dough is like looking a
little too risen, you can just pop it in the fridge a little earlier. That's all.
Okay, oven is going. I've got my dough, you want to dust it in some flour,
okay I'm gonna try and work slow however,
the best pizza is when you work really fast. Okay, so you've got your dough I'm
going to teach you how to roll it by hand because it's so much easier than you think.
It did take me a very long time to learn,
but my dad makes wicked good pizza so that's how I learned.
You take your ball of dough, you kind of flatten it okay, it's a bubble,
take your fingers you're mainly going to work with three fingers right now, on either side.
You're gonna push down the center, just the center and then slowly work your way around
the corner. Now this is what gives you a border, you're going to take your index finger and your
middle finger and the palm of this hand, and you're just gonna work around like so. Okay?
Okay, I'm gonna keep trying to keep the camera on you on me I should say, for you the whole time,
now you can see you've got your border okay, now you can flatten it out now you're going to
take the the palm or the side of your right hand, okay, and you're gonna - both hands are working to
stretch that dough, but you see I'm leaving that border alone because I like a nice risen border.
Right? Okay, now let me work my pizza peel over here. Now at this point you want to move
your pizza peel, well whatever instrument you're using to transfer your pizza, dust it lightly.
Okay, work fast. Watch my hands, okay? Watch, very lightly, you throw it up in the air. Okay?
You're looking for like a 12 inch circle, maybe a tiny tad bit bigger but it kind of like shrinks
back, look how perfect that is okay? Now one of the tricks is less is more with your sauce.
You want soggy pizza? You put extra sauce. You want perfect pizza? You put just enough.
For a pizza of this size you really should be looking at about a quarter cup,
maybe a tad more of sauce, but not that much more because again,
you're looking at very soggy pizza otherwise. This is perfect. Beautiful. Beautiful.
I feel like Papa Sal, you know?
Take your cheese, I'm using mozz,
a mixture of part skim and whole milk is really your friend when it comes to making good pizza.
Beautiful.
Leave that, dough leave that border alone belissima.
Now you could blow under it, but if you don't want to do that because you don't want to mess
any germs up, you kind of just take the sides and introduce a little air under there and it
should be, yeah, it's perfect. Okay can you see in my oven? You see where my pizza steel is?
Okay?
Wiggle it, wiggle it, wiggle it, wiggle it, wiggle it.
That's going to take about eight minutes. I need my watch. In four minutes,
I'm just putting my timer on, in four minutes I'm gonna flip it. I'll show you. Because
what's gonna happen is the back, okay, the hottest part of the oven is in the back.
That part is going to start to cook a little bit faster and and color a
little bit faster than the front, so we're just going to flip it,
so I've got my uh timer on and I will show you when we flip it and then I will get that one out,
put the new one in. And really, I mean, obviously you can go crazy with the toppings okay?
You want to do pineapple and ham? I'm not judging you, okay? Because I am all for you
living your best life and if that's what you want to do who am I to judge. Okay?
I mean I would never because my dad would disown me, but that's a different issue.
Uh, but you know, go crazy with the toppings. We're here to just learn
how to make restaurant style pizza the rest is up to you.
It's been four minutes, you can see that side is cooking
faster than this side so we want to keep things even, put it back in.
Look at that.
Gorgeous.
This just came out of the oven so bear with me.
No flop, okay, no flop, we ain't about that flop life up in here okay?
Can you see the golden brown crust?
I don't know if you can but if I tilt it - the cheese may..
Let that cool, while that cools I'm just gonna make the second one because we hungry.
Um, anyway, if you want to watch it happen again we're going to
move really fast so this is going to take seconds, really, because I
let this sit too long so now it warmed up a bit so I have no choice but to move super quickly.
I can't do it one-handed, I'm not that good alright, I'm good but I'm not Papa Sal,
but I can't do it one-handed, or my Uncle Tony. The problem is, I need a big bigger
Pizza Peel. I'm Gonna leave, well, I'm actually gonna not add the big garlics
in because if Mia bites on a big garlic I might as well go sleep with the chickens,
because she says it's too spicy, which she's not wrong.
It is a little bit spicy, it's a little bit hot, you know?
It's a little bit hot a little bit spicy it's gonna be good.
Gorgeous, she beautiful, beautimous and gorgeous.
That, I made a little bit too big, but you know
who's gonna complain about pizza that's a little bit too big? Not nobody.
While that bakes, we're gonna cut that into, we're going to cut into that one.
Listen for the crunch, well maybe you didn't hear hold on.
Look at the hollowness right there, can you see it right in here? See that, that's a good sign
that's a good sign okay, no real flop.
I'm gonna give that a 9.4, give it a 9.4, if you know you know.
I'd give it a 10. But then I feel like I'm cheating on Papa Sal, and that just feels wrong.
Oh that is going to be better than most take-out. And listen, I love me a take-out pizza, okay,
I love supporting local businesses it's one of the reasons why your community
thrives so don't stop doing that. However, if you do want a project this weekend, um..
This is it!
Yeah, so bomb. LauraintheKitchen.com with a full recipe hope you enjoyed
spending time with me, and I'll see you in the next one, bye!