On what mode in the oven to cook pizza. How to cook real pizza at home? (using the classic Margarita as an example)

I was sure that it was impossible to do something like this at home. It's not worth even trying. But suddenly? And I decided to try anyway. I re-read a mountain of articles, recipes and began to experiment.

And you know what? You can cook excellent Neapolitan pizza at home! Yes, it will not smell like a stove, and “exactly the same as in Naples” will not. Still, she'll be great. Even better than many local pizzerias.

But first you need to understand the nuances. So, what ingredients make up the perfect pizza?

Temperature. Pizza is a creation of fire. According to the official recipe of Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (Real Neapolitan Pizza Association), the pizza must be baked in a wood-fired oven at 485°C. In normal household conditions, we need at least 250°C - this is the maximum temperature of most ovens. The higher, the better. Therefore, before baking pizza, we thoroughly heat the oven (along with the baking sheet) at the maximum temperature for at least half an hour.

Baking time. In the oven, pizza is baked in a couple of minutes. In a conventional oven, this time will have to be increased to 6-8 minutes (depending on the size of the pizza). And not a minute longer. Recipes with a 20-minute pizza baking cause me a real heartbreak:) Because this is no longer a pizza, but a tortilla with an overcooked filling. The whole essence of pizza is in a soft elastic dough and a juicy filling, the moisture from which has not had time to evaporate.

Baking surface.Now it is clear that by the time of baking the baking sheet should be hot. As soon as the pizza touches him, she immediately same should start getting ready.Every second counts.If you put the pizza in the oven on a cold baking sheet - that's allgone. While the baking sheet with the dough warms up, the filling will already evaporate and dry out.Therefore, we preheat the baking sheet in advance with the oven.(Of course, the ideal would be to use pizza/bread stone for the most even heating of the doughand the formation of a thin crispy crust. But this is idealwell andA well-heated pan also works well).

Flour. The dough for Neapolitan pizza has a very characteristic crumb structure: elastic, “chewing”, porous like bread and fragrant. All these properties are affected by the quantity and quality of gluten, which is released from wheat protein during kneading. It helps the dough to create an extensible framework that holds carbon dioxide bubbles, so that after baking an elastic, airy, elastic crumb is obtained. The higher the protein content in the flour, the “stronger” it is, the more porous and elastic the dough will be.

For a proper pizza dough, you need flour with a protein content of at least 12 g per 100 g. For example, in ordinary (Ukrainian, Russian) premium flour, there is only 9% protein. In addition, the moisture content of our flour is much lower (more flour is needed for the same amount of water), which also does not improve the structure of the dough. Working with him is not very convenient, because. the dough is not elastic and easily torn, and the crumb is finely porous and crumbling.

And here is a visual difference (on the left - pizza from medium strength flour, 12 g of protein, on the right - from weak flour, 9 g of protein)

The structure of the dough after proofing (above - medium-strength flour, below - weak flour):

How to choose the right flour? Should it be Italian? Not necessary. It just needs to be flour from soft wheat varieties, finely ground, with a protein content of at least 12 g per 100 g. Domestic flour marked “for baking bread”, for example, may be suitable - its protein content is higher. Let's look at the composition. Well, if you choose from Italian flour, then it should be “typo 00” (fine grinding) with the percentage of protein indicated above. There are already ready-made mixes, on which it is written: “for pizza”. Over time, you can start experimenting, trying to mix different types of flour (for example, weak Ukrainian flour can be “strengthened” with flour with a high protein content). For example, my favorite pizza is made from strong flour (14 g protein) manitoba for long proofing, it is used for baking bread, croissants, etc. The dough from it turns out to be very fragrant and indescribably “chewing”, like Meller caramels :)

Proofing time. During the proofing of the dough, a fermentation process takes place, which forms the taste and aroma. Roughly speaking, the longer the dough rests, the tastier and more aromatic the pizza will be :) This process can take from 3 to 12 hours. For myself, I determined that four hours is quite enough, but if it is possible to leave longer, the better. The dough is still the main element of pizza, and it should be tasty enough so that it would not be a shame to serve pizza even with salt and olive oil alone.

Filling. 1) Pizza only spends a few minutes in the oven. Therefore, if the filling needs heat treatment (raw meat, mushrooms, tough vegetables, etc.), we do this in advance. Meat should be already cooked, mushrooms fried, etc. 2) By the time of baking, we prepare and cut everything. So that the filling remains only to be thrown onto the formed base - and immediately into the oven. The filling on the raw dough should spend a few seconds - otherwise the dough may become “sticky”. 3) Do not be greedy and do not pile on a mountain of filling :) We distribute it evenly over the base in one layer. If there is too much filling, neither she nor the dough will have time to cook.

Parchment. We prepare baking parchment in advance and sprinkle it with cornmeal - pizza dough is very sticky, only hard coarse flour will help here. We transfer the formed base to parchment with flour - and only then lay out the filling. An attempt to transfer the base with the filling to the oven without parchment will most likely end in an accident :)

Phew, now you can go directly to the recipe. It's downright simple :)

Ingredients:

250 g fine flour, at least 12 g of protein per 100 g (however, you can cook with regular flour - it will still be good, but it will need a little more)
10 g fresh yeast (3 times less dry)
160 ml warm clean water (filtered or boiled)
1/3 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cornmeal for dusting
A few tablespoons of tomato sauce (passata from fresh tomatoes, from tomatoes in own juice, ready from a can, etc.)
100-130 g mozzarella
Olive oil
Or any other filling of your choice

Exit: 2 small pizzas with a diameter of about 25-30 cm

Cooking:

1. Grind the yeast, mix with sugar. Fill with warm (human body temperature) water, stir until dissolved. We sift the flour. Pour the liquid with yeast into the flour, mix.

2. Add salt. And we begin to knead with a mixer with dough attachments or a food processor - the first 3-4 minutes at a low speed, then increase the speed and knead for another minute 5 (if by hand - only 12-15 minutes) until the dough starts to come together.

If ordinary, weak, flour is used, it will have to be added, because. the dough will be sticky. Add half a tablespoon at a time, stirring after each addition. We stop when the dough stops spreading and gathers in a lump (in total, 3-5 tablespoons may be needed, it is important not to overdo it).

The dough will remain slightly sticky - this is normal. Lubricate a spacious dish with vegetable oil, form a ball from the dough, dust with flour and transfer to a bowl. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to stand for at least 4 hours (in a cool, increase the proofing time).

3. Half an hour before the end of the proofing, preheat the oven with a baking sheet at maximum temperature. With hands lubricated in vegetable oil, take the dough out of the bowl. Lightly crush. The dough is soft, elastic and elastic.

4. Divide into two equal parts and form balls from them. Look how it stretches :) Put the first ball on a work surface sprinkled with flour (or even better flour + a little cornmeal, so it will be easier to wipe off the rest of the dough later :). With the palm of our hand we make such a recess.

5. Now we begin to stretch the dough from the center to the edges and form the basis for the pizza, trying not to put pressure on the sides. We use the second palm as a limiter, moving it along the circumference of the base so that the shape does not spread and remains more or less rounded. Periodically turn the dough over and stretch on the other side.

Like this

6. The base can be lifted and it will stretch due to its own weight. If the dough does not stretch well (this sometimes happens), it is enough to leave it to rest for 10-15 minutes so that the gluten “relaxes” and start again.

7. In general, we stretch as much as we can, leaving only the ring of sides thick :) The base should be thin enough, in the center - no more than 3 mm, and then about 5 mm. If a hole has formed somewhere due to excessive zeal - it's okay, we'll close it with a piece of dough.

Put the formed base on parchment for baking sprinkled with cornmeal. Spread the tomato sauce evenly, drizzle with olive oil, you can add dried basil and / or oregano. Throw in the chopped mozzarella. Again, drizzle with olive oil. Only good! The more oil, the tastier and juicier :)

8. And immediately send it to the preheated oven for 6 minutes. Don't let the pale sides confuse you - the dough will be ready. Cut and eat immediately, rumbling.

The whole procedure, except for the proofing time of the dough, takes 20-25 minutes: 10 minutes for kneading and 10 minutes for forming the base.

The dough after proofing and forming balls can be wrapped in cling film, frozen and used as needed. Freezing-defrosting does not affect the taste and consistency of the dough, but it is brutally convenient :) It remains only to pull the dough out of the freezer in advance, form the base, sketch out the fillings - and you're done.

The right pizza dough is fluffy and soft, with a lot of bubbles inside, and covered with a crispy crust on the outside. To get such a dough, it is important to choose the right ingredients and bake the pizza for a short time, but at a very high temperature.

Choose your recipe

Picking the Right Pizza Ingredients

To begin with, it is very important to choose the right flour and filling. In order to get the right pizza dough, you need to use flour with a protein content of 12 grams. The gluten contained in this flour directly affects the formation of a porous crumb.

Thus, Makfa wheat flour contains 10.3 grams of protein. This is more than in ordinary Russian flour (9 grams), but less than is necessary to obtain an elastic dough.

Real Italian pizza spends only a few minutes in the oven, so you can’t use a raw topping when cooking it - it just won’t have time to bake enough. Pieces of meat, chicken, fish and mushrooms must first be fried, and vegetables must be stewed. The exceptions are thinly sliced ​​tomatoes and onion rings. In a few minutes in the oven, they will have time to be covered with a small crust, and inside they will remain juicy - exactly the kind that are needed for a real pizza. Sausage and other smoked meats heat treatment do not require.

Proven Pizza Recipe

You will need:

250 grams flour-
- 5 grams of dry yeast -
- a quarter teaspoon of salt
- 150 ml of warm water -
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil -
- 2.5 tablespoons of tomato paste -
- a clove of garlic -
- half a teaspoon of dried basil
- half a teaspoon of dried oregano
- 1 small tomato-
- half a small onion -
- 50 grams of chicken fillet -
- 50-70 grams of parmesan or mozzarella.

This is enough to cook 1 round pizza with a diameter of 30 centimeters (for 2 persons). Increase the amount of food depending on how many guests you are going to feed.

First of all, you should do the test. Sift flour into a deep bowl, mix it with yeast and salt. In a glass of warm water, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, mix and pour water in a thin stream into the dry flour mixture. Do not pour in all the water at once - perhaps a smaller amount is enough for you to get the test. Knead the dough with your hands. It shouldn't be too cool. Place the elastic ball of dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap on top and leave in a warm place for 3 hours (or as long as he needs.)

It is better to take care of preparing pizza dough in advance. In order for it to turn out to be sufficiently porous, the dough must be suitable for at least 3 hours. If it works, then it can be longer.

Before rolling out the dough, prepare the filling and preheat the oven well along with the baking sheet.

The pizza will spend 6-8 minutes in the oven, so it's important that even the baking sheet is heated to the limit. Turn on the oven at 250°C 30 minutes before placing the pizza in it.

Cut the tomatoes into thin rounds, and the onion into half rings. Fry small pieces of fillet until tender in a small amount of oil. Cheese grate on a coarse grater. To prepare the sauce, combine tomato paste, dry herbs, minced garlic and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

When the dough has risen, roll it into a circle and place it on a piece of parchment. Lubricate the future pizza with tomato sauce, then alternately put onion, tomato slices and chicken on it. Sprinkle the pizza with grated cheese. Do not take too much filling, otherwise it will not have time to bake.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and carefully transfer the pizza parchment onto it. Send the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 6-8 minutes at a temperature of 250 ° C.

Italian cuisine is one of the most popular in the world. Perhaps her most famous dish is pizza. This truly Italian dish is now, without exaggeration, the most popular type of snack. Almost everyone has tried this stuffed pie at least once and is unlikely to remain indifferent.

Pizza is loved by the vast majority of people, it will be a great choice for children's holiday, family dinner, picnic or snack at work. Undoubtedly, now there are many cafes involved in the manufacture and sale of this dish. But the right, authentic Italian pizza can not be found everywhere. But what's stopping you from doing it?

Pizza at home

Undoubtedly, a special oven is used to bake pizza in specialty restaurants. But even at home, in the oven, such a pie (and pizza is actually an open pie) will come out no worse. But it is worth noting that it is very important to use fresh quality ingredients, otherwise the finished product will be spoiled.

Only from your own oven does the dish turn out to be deliciously delicious and only with the products that the author wanted to put there. However, the main thing here is to know some secrets and subtleties.

homemade pizza recipe

First, let's find out what pizza is. This is a pie made from yeast dough, smeared with tomato sauce, with cheese and all kinds of toppings. Modern cooking has a wide variety of pizza recipes. And the key ingredient in pizza is the dough, everything else depends on its quality. It consists of yeast, flour, sugar, salt and olive oil.

How to prepare pizza dough?

To prepare a thin dough, take 350 grams of wheat flour, a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of dry yeast, 1 tbsp. l. sugar and salt, 250 ml of water.

Place yeast and sugar in a bowl and mix with 4 tablespoons of water. Leave for 15 minutes in a warm place, the mixture should “foam”. Mix flour with salt, add olive oil, remaining water and yeast mixture. Knead the dough with a wooden spoon. After that, put the dough on a table sprinkled with flour and knead for 4-5 minutes. After that, again put the dough in a container, cover with a towel and wait for half an hour. The dough should rise 2 times.

After that, lay out the approached dough on a flour surface and press it down with your fingers. Next, sprinkle the dough and rolling pin with flour, and roll it out. We fold the layer four times and roll it out again, giving the appropriate shape. For a thin cake, the thickness of the cake should be about 3 mm, and for a fluffy one - 6 mm. Lay the crust on a baking sheet or on a baking sheet.

Pizza crust can be either yeast dough or puff pastry. For the latter, you need to take 1.5 cups of flour, half a cup of water, 100 gr. margarine, a teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt.

Pizza dough at home

We chop the margarine with a knife, dissolve sugar and salt in cold water and quickly knead the dough so that it turns out smooth and shiny. After that, put the dough in the refrigerator for several hours. Then roll out the dough on the board 2-3 times, folding it 3-4 times each time. From the resulting cake, make a cake with a thickness of 1 cm, a diameter of 25 cm and sides of 2-3 cm.

Tomato sauce for pizza

Its basis is fresh tomatoes in summer and tomato paste in winter. For the sauce, you need 4 cloves of garlic, 3 large tomatoes (or 3 tsp tomato paste or 6 canned tomatoes), olive oil, basil, sea salt.

Heat oil in a pan, add basil and minced garlic. After a few minutes, put the chopped tomatoes without peel, salt and simmer the mixture until smooth.

pizza cheese

Cheese is an integral part of pizza. For a classic pizza, it is better to choose aged Parmigiano. Goat cheese goes very well with meat-filled pizzas, chicken or bacon. But taleggio is suitable for vegetables or root crops. Pizza with tomato sauce and herbs is best sprinkled with ricotto cheese.

Hard cheeses (Parmesan or Pecorino) will melt well if grated on a coarse grater, while soft cheeses (mozzarella) can be cut into thin slices.

In principle, any home-made cheese, grated, which melts and stretches well, can be added to homemade pizza.

Pizza filling

As a topping for pizza, almost all products that are in the refrigerator are suitable. That’s why it’s good to cook a dish at home - you can put as many fillings inside as you like and what you want.

Pizza with sausage is the easiest recipe. It will require a minimum of products: cheese, tomatoes and, in fact, sausage. On the finished cake we lay out diced sausage, you can even doctor's, which is in almost every home. For taste, it can be fried in advance.

After that, lay out the chopped tomatoes and sprinkle with grated hard cheese on top. We put the future pizza in a preheated oven and after 20-30 minutes the dish is ready. By the way, the degree of readiness can be observed by the golden crust on the dough.

Pizza with mushrooms - a dish for an amateur. Mushrooms add a spicy flavor to the pie. For the filling of such a pizza, it is worth taking 300 g of peeled tomatoes, 400 g of ham, 100 g hard cheese, 300 grams of fresh mushrooms (for example, champignons), 2 cloves of garlic, a glass of white wine, salt and basil.

Cut mushrooms into slices and place in a heated pan. Add vegetable oil, chopped garlic and a glass of wine. Boil the resulting mixture for 15-20 minutes. After that, salt. The sauce is made as follows: fry the chopped clove of garlic in oil, scald the tomatoes, peel and cut. Put the crushed tomatoes in a pan, put the basil and simmer for 10 minutes. Cool the sauce.

Lubricate the cake generously with tomato sauce, put ham and mushrooms on it. Sprinkle with grated cheese and put in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for 20 minutes.

By the way, for the simplest pizza you need a minimum set of products - tomato paste, cheese and seasonings - for example, a mixture of peppers.

How to cook Neapolitan pizza at home?

For the dough you will need 500 grams of flour, 20 grams of yeast, 300 grams of warm water and half a teaspoon of salt.

Sift the flour into a container, make a hole in the middle, crumble the yeast into it and knead the sourdough from water and a small amount of flour. Sprinkle it with flour, cover and leave to approach. We wait until the starter starts to bubble. Knead the remaining water, salt, olive oil and sourdough into a dough. Knead until bubbles. Let's make two balls from the dough and make a cruciform cut at the top of each, cover and put in a warm place for an hour.

We spread the filling on the finished cake. Cut the tomatoes and cheese into slices, put on the dough, salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with coarsely chopped garlic and oregano, drizzle with olive oil. Pizza should be cooked in the oven at a medium level at a temperature of 240 degrees for about 15 minutes. Finished pizza should be decorated with basil.

Pizza Minute

If it is important for you to cook pizza in a few minutes, a minute pizza recipe will come to the rescue. Also, this dish will be a great choice for a quick breakfast.

Pizza in a pan in 10 minutes

Mix 2 eggs, 4 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 4 tablespoons of sour cream and 9 tablespoons of flour (take spoons without a slide). The dough should be liquid, like sour cream. Pour it into the pan, add the filling on top. An excellent choice, for example, would be sausage or ham, canned mushrooms and olives. Put a layer of thinly sliced ​​tomatoes on top, sprinkle with grated cheese. Wait 10-15 minutes (depending on the amount of filling). The pizza is ready!

How to cook pizza in the microwave?

Cooking pizza in the microwave is 4-8 times faster than in the oven. At the same time, taste and appearance remain on top. In addition, the dish bakes better in the microwave, even if the dough is thick. By the way, in this case, it is not necessary to make the top layer of mayonnaise or cheese, which usually protect the filling from heat.

However, before you start cooking such a pizza, you need to know a few secrets: the yeast dough should be melted less than usual, the dough should be made more liquid, and you need to put the pizza in a preheated microwave.

The editors of the site wish their readers bon appetit and new tasty and healthy recipes.