Do you have pizza nights? We do and have done since the boys were little . This homemade pizza recipe certainly is tried and tested as it has been our failsafe recipe which has been used since before the boys were born so for around 15 years! I have learned that kids love pizza and letting them top their own is a great way to encourage them to eat something new. Plus it is super simple to prepare and make, so much so it is our regular Saturday night meal and now we have a wood fired pizza oven we are loving Saturdays even more!
We make our pizza dough in our bread maker – I love it as it only takes 50 minutes, plus I can add all the ingredients set the timer and the dough can be ready when I want it to be. No bread maker? No worries. You can make this recipe by hand or even in a mixer using a dough hook. If you are making by hand then make sure you use warm water to help with the rise. Kids love kneading pizza dough, so it is a great hands-on baking activity for them.
Homemade Pizza Recipe
Ingredients for 3 12 inch pizza bases
How to make Homemade Pizza
The reason that there are two amounts for the flour is that no two flours have the same absorbency, so you may need to add more flour or more water during the mixing process.
To make the dough by hand. Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a large mixing bowl and stir in the olive oil. Gradually add the water, mixing well to form a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead for about five minutes, until smooth and elastic. Transfer to a clean bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise for about 1½ hours until doubled in size. When the dough has risen, knock it back, then knead again until smooth, roll into a ball and set aside for 30 minutes to 1 hour until risen again.
When making pizza dough in a bread maker follow the instructions in its manual. This is how we do it and it only takes 50 minutes.
Once your dough is proved then roll out on a floured surface to your chosen size. (small individual sizes are perfect for younger children. We make 12 inch pizzas. We use pizza mesh (UK Link/US Link) rather than a tray to cook our pizzas on.
Spread a little passata (or homemade tomato sauce) over each pizza base and top with your favourite toppings.
Bake the pizzas in the oven (as hot as possible) until the bases are crisp and golden-brown around the edges and any cheese on the topping has melted.
We often top our pizza with what we have left in the fridge, so cooked meats, cheese, peppers, onions and basil. We have tried some flavour combinations and the weirdest being bacon and banana which our South African friends introduced us too.
Wood fired homemade pizza
I have been lusting after a woodfired pizza oven since seeing one on Jane’s Instagram years ago, so when The Chiminea Shop offered me a review product and I saw they had a pizza oven, well there was no alternative to me. It was delivered on Friday and MadDad and Maxi had it built in less than 10 minutes on Saturday and had it fired up waiting for pizzas on Saturday evening!
Using our wood-fired pizza oven was a real pleasure. It gets very hot and cooks amazing pizza. We thought our pizzas were great when we cooked them in the oven, but they are amazing when they are cooked in the wood-fired pizza oven.
Our new oven has a thermostat on the front so you can gauge the temperature of the oven. It also has a stay cool handle.
It is easy to add wood too and the decorate cover to the burn area lets you see the fames.
Plus the bonus of cooking our homemade pizza in the oven outside means that the boys get to toast marshmallows!
Why not take a look at our other pizza posts:
- Mini pizza bites – perfect for snacks, parties or lunchboxes
- Bread maker pizza dough
- Homemade pizza dough
- Pizza with preschoolers
- Vegetable & Salsa Verde Scone Pizza
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Disclosure: We were gifted the Gardeco Forno Outdoor Oven for the purpose of this post
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