Before beginning to make pizza, it’s essential that all of the necessary ingredients are ready. Begin by combining yeast with warm water and sugar in a mixing bowl.
Prepping toppings ahead of time makes the process go more quickly, and adding some grated Parmesan cheese after baking helps ensure crispier pizza crusts.
Flour your work surface and hands to help prevent the dough from sticking to them.
Ingredients
Fresh, high-quality toppings add vibrant flavor and nutritional value to pizzas, including lower sodium levels and increased fiber intake than processed or canned products.
In most recipes, dough is prepared using flour, sugar, yeast, salt and oil. First water is added to activate the yeast; next flour and oil are combined until a smooth dough forms; this dough should then be kneaded before being left alone to rise for several hours or overnight.
The dough can be formed into individual pizzas or rolled out for larger pizzas, and a pizza peel or baking sheet should be dusted with cornmeal before placing the pizza on it. Furthermore, dough may be frozen without degrading in quality for up to three months without adverse affects.
Preparation
As pizza toppings go, almost anything goes; the key is finding a balance in terms of flavors. If there is a standout ingredient such as burrata or another specialty meat you want to feature without distraction from too much sauce.
Kneading dough strengthens its gluten network, helping it stretch without breaking. Furthermore, this action softens and pliableifies it.
Before stretching your dough, sprinkle a surface (such as a wooden pizza peel) with a light coating of flour to avoid sticking and create an crisp crust. Gently but quickly stretch out your dough into a round shape.
Dough
The dough can be created using either all-purpose or bread flour; I recommend bread flour due to its higher gluten content which enables better stretching capabilities.
Stir yeast and warm water together and allow to stand until foamy – approximately five minutes (this process is known as proofing). Combine all of the remaining ingredients with this yeast-water combination and stir well; adding extra salt as needed for taste.
Knead your dough for about 5 minutes until smooth and bouncy (you may take a 10 minute break during this process to refresh its kneading). If the dough becomes sticky while working with it, lightly dust it with flour to help avoid sticking issues.
Rising
Once the dough has finished rising, take it out of its bowl and lightly oil its interior with olive oil, as this helps prevent it from sticking to both its container and plastic film.
If your yeast doesn’t activate as desired, try dissolving it in some lukewarm water with sugar added for faster activation. Sugar will give the yeast something they can feed off of and accelerate activation.
Kneading pizza dough helps strengthen its gluten, helping the pizza retain its shape when stretched, as well as giving it a lighter crust. Kneading is complete when the ball of dough becomes soft yet slightly tacky when poked and returns quickly when released from pressure. The rising stage begins once this occurs and will only continue when it forms into an irregular, soft mass that bounces back after being poked with your fingers.
Stretching
When stretching dough, it is essential to remember that as it cools the gluten network tightens up, potentially leading to breakages if not sufficiently warmed prior to shaping.
Start by gently picking up and draping the pizza over your knuckles, then slowly pulling your hands apart while rotating it to stretch the dough. If the dough starts snapping back quickly it may be too tight, instead allow it to rest for several minutes to help relax the gluten.
Finishing
Final Step: Finish and Transfer Pizza into Oven
Some commercial bleached flour is treated with potassium bromate to oxidize dough and improve rise and texture, so look for pizza flour without bromate or add diastatic malt powder to high-protein bread flour to mimic this effect.
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If you’re feeding a group, the fairest way to slice pizza is in slices of equal size using a pie cutting guide. You could also cut pizza strips for visual impact or picky eaters.