Pizza used to be the cheap old American takeout, but it’s not so cheap for my family anymore. Everyone wants their own kind of pizza. That’s why I do Make Your Own Pizza Night.
If you’re enjoying the Broke Teacher recipe section so far, you’ll recognize some of this recipe below as our Daily Bread recipe. With a couple of quick changes and some planning ahead, it’s also good for a pizza–or ten.
Equipment:
- A kitchen scale. Baking is a science, not a creative art. You must be precise.
- Mixer with good dough hook. This is optional.
- Pizza or baking stone. This is optional, but helps retain heat and give that bakery feel.
Ingredients:
- 20 oz (by weight) King Arthur bread flour
- 12 oz (by weight) room temperature water
- 1/2 tsp yeast
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 2 tsp olive oil
Note: This is a ratio. Play with the math and get the quantity of dough that’s perfect for you!
Process:
- Put all the ingredients into your bowl and mix with the dough hook until it forms a smooth ball.
- When done, take the dough out spread a bit of olive oil on the bottom of the same bowl so dough won’t stick.
- Return dough to bowl.
- Cover with plastic wrap or a flour sack cloth.
Refrigerate:
- Oil a gallon freezer bag with a little olive oil. If the bag isn’t oiled, you’ll have a disaster.
- Put the dough in the bag and refrigerate 24 hours. Pizza snobs say the perfect length of resting time is 3 days. That’s too much planning for me.
Prepare
- Take the dough out and let rest at room temperature, divided into pizza-sized balls.
- Roll with a rolling pin on a well floured counter. Flour well or the dough will stick to your stuff forever.
- Place rolled out pizza on a pizza stone if you’ve got one, and top with Amazing Pizza Stuff.
Bake this pizza as HOT as you can. If your oven goes to 450 or 500 degrees without setting off the fire alarm, now’s the time to crank that sucker up! Trust me on this! It’ll take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes depending on how thick you rolled your pizza and the temperature you achieved. Pizza ovens are hot. You can’t overdo this… but you can leave it in too long.
Broke Teacher Tip: TIP 1: Make a ton of pizza shells at once. Roll out personal-sized pizza shells and freeze them flat. You can freeze them flat using cardboard and wax paper to separate layers or tin cookie sheets with parchment paper. These will be ready for your next Make Your Own Pizza Night on the fly. TIP 2: Get Amazing Pizza Stuff toppings on sale. I love mushrooms. I’ll saute them when they’re on the sale shelf and freeze for pizza night.
Amazing Pizza Stuff
A fun family activity–have dishes of sliced and diced toppings at the ready and have every person top their own pizza. Pop it into the oven and enjoy!
- sliced peppers
- mushrooms
- olives
- sardines and anchovies
- onions–caramelized or fresh
- tomato chunks
- hamburger
- pepperoni
- different cheeses–mozzerella, parm, anything really.
Try unusual combos:
- Feta, spinach, kalamata
- taco pizza: cheddar, tomato, onion, jalapeño slices, olives, fresh avocado out of the oven.
- Classic margherita: tomato slices, fresh mozzerella, fresh basil.
- pineapple and ham
- dessert pizza: chocolate chips, marshmallows and ice cream scoops
- breakfast pizza: jam and sour cream