- Hi guys, welcome back to my channel.
Today we are making homemade pizza.
There's nothing more delicious or easy.
Now it has taken me a few years to bring this recipe to you
because I have been tweaking with it for years
to be perfectly honest.
And I have finally cracked the case with two tips
that I think make all the difference.
And I'm going to share those with you.
But before we get started, I wanted to let you know
that I'm gonna be doing my first YouTube live video.
I know next Sunday at 10 o'clock Pacific Standard Time.
So I am doing this in collaboration with Give Essential,
which is a charity that was started
by two college students, I'm so impressed.
And the charity is benefiting essential workers
who really need our help right now.
So I hope you will join me.
All the information is in the description below.
All you have to do is register for the live
and then you'll be notified by email when it's set to go.
So I hope I see you there.
So the first thing we wanna do is start with our yeast.
So in this little pitcher, I have a quarter cup of water.
And the one thing you wanna know about yeast
is you wanna make sure it's at the right temperature.
So this water needs
to be anywhere between 110 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
Because if it's not hot enough,
that yeast will not activate
and you'll have a bit of a dud on your hands.
If it's too hot, it will actually kill the yeast,
so yeast is a living organism
and so you need to be careful with it
that you're not using water that's too hot.
And then the next thing we're gonna do
is add a teaspoon of sugar.
So yeast needs something to feed off of.
And one of its favorite things is sugar.
So we're gonna do one teaspoon in there
and then we're also gonna add a teaspoon
of dry active yeast.
And then you just want to whisk that up, just like this.
And here's the fun part,
it's gonna get really foamy and cloudy.
And this is another great way
to test to make sure that your yeast is still good
because we haven't gone too far yet.
We haven't made the dough,
we haven't used all of the flour,
we've only used water and yeast.
So if this does not activate
and look totally different in like five minutes,
then you know the yeast is no good
and you should throw it out and start again.
My first tip when it comes to homemade pizza dough
is the flour.
So for years I was making homemade pizzas
with just all purpose flour and it was good,
but I'm from the East Coast
and pizza for me has to be chewy,
there has to be like the dough
and I just wasn't getting that.
So I started researching
and found out it's really the flour.
You really need to use bread flour
if you want that chewiness,
because bread flour has more protein in it
which makes more gluten, which absorbs more water,
which makes the dough more chewy.
So suffice it to say, get the bread flour.
I'm going to put three cups in the bowl
and then we're also gonna use a teaspoon of salt
just to give it some flavor,
and then you can whisk that up.
Then we're gonna add our yeast mixture
and you can see it's getting really puffy right now
because it's been sitting here for a few minutes.
So we're gonna pour this in,
but this actually isn't enough water.
We also need to add another cup of warm water
to the bowl as well.
And then we're gonna stir this up.
Then once this comes away from the side of the bowl
and starts to form a dough ball,
then you're ready for the next part, which is the kneading.
So then you want to turn your dough out on a floured surface
and I do use the bread flour for this,
and then you're just going to start to kind of knead it.
So just fold it over and push it down
and fold it over and push it down.
And I would do this for about 10 to 15 turns.
So then go back to your bowl, make sure it's cleaned out
because we want to add some olive oil
just in the bottom of the bowl,
which will prevent it from sticking
and it'll also add a little bit flavor
to your dough as well.
While our dough is rising,
we can get on with making our tomato sauce.
So I keep it pretty simple,
I basically just use one can,
so it's 15 ounces of plain tomato sauce.
So you don't want any other flavorings in it
because we're gonna add our own.
You could use jarred pizza sauce,
but why, when you see how quick and easy this is?
And this is going to taste so much better.
Then we're also gonna add one clove of garlic,
a little bit of salt, some freshly cracked pepper,
and then we're also gonna add half a teaspoon
of dried oregano.
If you don't have a oregano
you could also use dried basil, that would be good.
And then I also like to add a little bit
of just tomato paste
just to sweeten up the sauce a little bit.
So we're gonna do two tablespoons of that,
there, and that's all you have to do, easy, right?
Then I just let this simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes.
You don't need to go far with it
because we put that tomato paste in.
If you're not using the tomato paste,
maybe go for 20 minutes or so
just to take that acidity down a bit.
All right, let's talk about
what we're gonna cook this pizza in
because I feel like I've tried every method under the sun.
I've done the pizza stones, the pizza pans,
I've even tried the pizza stone on the barbecue,
which turned into a total fiasco.
I don't know that I would recommend that.
Basically what happened is the pizza stone burnt,
the pizza caught on fire,
and I had to take the whole thing
and throw it on the gravel.
So we're not going to go down that road.
Instead, we are going to use my favorite method,
which is a cast iron pan.
The reason I like the Cast Iron Skillet
is it's a great conductor for heat.
So it creates really even baking around the pizza.
It also creates a nice puffy crust,
which I think is great
and allows you to get a crisp under crust,
which I'm gonna show you my trick for it in a minute.
And it's going to deliver a round pizza,
which at the end of the day,
when I've made those pizzas on the pizza stone,
I always had sort of
this weird organic Flopsy Mopsy looking thing.
It was really hard to cut and serve
so that's why I liked the skillet.
Here's my dough that has been rising on my countertop
and I'll show you what it looks like,
it looks pretty good.
You can see it's all nicely risen
and then we are just gonna plop it out
onto my floured surface.
So one thing I should say,
this dough makes enough
for two 12 inch pizzas in the skillet.
If you're only making one,
you can wrap the other one in a Ziploc bag
and pop it in the freezer.
And then when you go to defrost it,
just put it in the fridge overnight
and then you can work with it again.
So it's good to just cut it in half just like this
and then we're only gonna use half of it.
And pizza dough is not like pie dough,
it can be hard to roll out.
So I find, if you let it sit a minute,
so like if you're having a hard time rolling it out,
just give it a minute and let it rest.
And then it'll be a lot easier to roll out.
So sometimes you have to do it in stages.
And if you need to stretch it,
you can do like they do in the pizza parlors.
Just kind of move it around like this and stretch it
that works too.
But once you get it kind of some semblance of a circle,
then you can pop it into your pan.
The other thing we wanna make sure
is that we have a little bit of flour in our skillet,
you can go ahead and pull up it in there
and then just stretch it out.
Then once you have it all fitted in here,
then I like to go around with my fingertips.
So you can kind of see like this
and just kind of push it in
to kind of create like the crust.
And that will help serve as a guide
for where to put your tomato sauce.
This is my second tip that I think is critical
when it comes to homemade pizza,
is to get it started on the cooktop.
So to give that under crossed a headstart,
because oftentimes when I was making pizza at home,
I would always feel that the underside
was always really doughy and never really crisped up enough,
even with the pizza stone.
So I really loved this technique with the skillet
because it allows you to get a head start
and that's what we're gonna do.
So we're going to put this on a medium high flame,
and then we're gonna add
just one little spoonful of the sauce.
We are gonna leave this here for about three minutes.
You don't wanna go any more than that
because it will start to get really crispy on the bottom.
But I found somewhere
around the three minute mark is perfect.
So we're gonna then add
just some shredded mozzarella cheese.
Then once you get the cheese on,
you can also add a little bit more oregano if you want.
Then once you start
to see it puff up a little bit around the edges,
you can even see some of the little bubbling here,
then it's time to put it in the oven.
You do wanna make sure
that your oven is preheated in advance
because this has to go right in the oven.
So we're gonna go for about 10 to 12 minutes
just when our pizza, it looks like it's done.
All right, look at this, it's ready, fresh out of the oven,
it looks so delicious.
Then I also like to add a little bit of fresh basal.
Now, before you serve this, another good thing to do
is just to kind of go around with a knife
and loosen any edges in case the cheese built over
and baked the crust to your skillet,
that can happen.
And then one thing we'd like to do at our house
is make two or three of these
and put them on a big serving board.
And then that way
we can cut and serve all in the same place.
So I am just going to transfer it, there we go.
This is quite a big board for this little tiny pizza
I should've made two, but you get the picture.
There you see, you get this crispy bottom
and then you also get
these little like pillows of air in here.
And that is something
that I have only found with the bread dough.
So that is my opinion on that.
Should I give it a try? Let's see.
Well, it's yummy, still good.
You do wanna make sure,
I might've put this
a little too long on the skillet 'cause I was talking
but three minutes, I wouldn't go over that
unless you want a really crispy crust,
then you could go four minutes.
Anyway, I hope you guys give this one a try
and let me know what you think.
Pizza at home, it's not as intimidating
as you may have once thought.
All right you guys,
I'll see you back here next week, till then, bye.