Turning pizza dough into great tasting pizza is fairly easy to do. Whether you have bought the dough from a bakery, or made your own it doesn't take much more than some toppings, spaghetti sauce and a good pizza oven to make a delicious Italian pizza.
Ingredients
- Enough pizza dough for a medium pizza
- Toppings of your choice (pepperoni, sausage, olives, pineapple, etc)
- Spaghetti sauce (store bought or home made)
- Mozzarella Cheese
- Italian spices
Optional
- Parmesan Cheese
- Other cheeses
Directions
- Warm the dough to room temperature. Trying to roll out cold dough is difficult and time consuming.
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. If you are using a stone, preheat the oven well ahead of time and place the stone in at the very beginning to heat up. A cookie or pizza pan doesn't need to be pre-heated.
- If you want to make pizza at an outdoor family gathering or a friend’s party, you can always choose for using a mobile pizza oven. It is convenient and makes your pizza extremely tasty. Californo has some great options you can choose from.
- Prepare the toppings. Make sure any sausage or raw vegetables are cut into small pieces to ensure they cook properly. Drain wet pizza toppings such as olives and pineapple to prevent a soggy pizza.
- If you are making your own spaghetti sauce, prepare it but do not cook it. It will cook in the oven. Store bought sauces can be used as is.
- On a well floured surface roll out the dough. Make sure it fits the pizza stone or pan. Make the dough an even thickness and use your fingers to round and slightly raise the edge to form the crust.
- A) If using a pizza stone, take the hot stone out of the oven and spread corn meal on it to prevent sticking. Quickly and very carefully place the dough on the stone. Some cooks will then pre-cook the crust, before placing the sauce, toppings, mozzarella cheese and Italian spices on the pizza. Others will quickly place the toppings on the crust and place it back in the oven. If you choose the second method try to have everything completed within 2 minutes, if it takes too long the pizza crust will cook unevenly.
- B) If you are using a pizza pan or cookie sheet, place the dough in the oiled pan and put the sauce, toppings, mozzarella cheese and Italian spices on the uncooked crust. You can take your time while doing this.
- Put the pizza in the oven. After 7 minutes check the pizza, the crust should be firm, and if the toppings are already on the pizza the cheese should be melted. After another 1 to 2 minutes the cheese should be lightly browned, take it out when this happens.If you precooked the pizza crust, take the crust out at 5 or 6 minutes when it is slightly hardened and add the sauce, pizza toppings and spices and place it back in the oven. Cook it for another 5 to 6 minutes. Make sure any raw meat is extra small to ensure it will be entirely cooked.
- Once the Italian pizza is out of the oven let it cool for 5 minutes and then remove it from the pan or stone. If it sticks to the pan use a spatula to gently pry it off, and next time use more cornmeal or oil to prevent sticking.
- Cut the pizza into sizes of your preference and enjoy.
Important: Do not overload the pizza. Too much sauce or wet toppings can make your pizza soggy.
The entire cooking process should take approximately one hour with a pizza stone and half an hour for a regular pizza pan. As long as the Italian pizza isn't under or over cooked it will be ready to eat as soon as it cools down, and then Parmesan cheese, Tabasco sauce or other seasonings can be added to this delicious pizza.