The perfect oven pizza

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 450 g flour
• 200 ml water, lukewarm
• 1 packet of dry yeast
• 1 tsp, leveled salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 balls of mozzarella (125 g each)
• 1 pack of tomatoes, pureed
• Pizza seasoning
• possibly tomato sauce
• some basil
• possibly ham and ingredients for the topping of your choice
• possibly grease for the tray

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Rest time approx. 4 hours; Total time approx. 4 hours 20 minutes

crispy and delicious like at the Italian restaurant, even without a stone oven

Combine flour, water, dry yeast, salt, and olive oil in a bowl and knead until you have an elastic dough that doesn’t stick to your hands. Add a little more flour if the dough is too sticky. Shape it into a ball, cover it, and let it rise in a warm place (room temperature or slightly warmer) for 30 minutes. Knead again (you may need to add a little more flour if the dough sticks), cover it, and place it in a warm place. Let the dough rise for at least two hours, preferably four hours. You can also leave the dough covered in the refrigerator overnight; it might taste even better. For the tomato sauce, either use a ready-made sauce (tomato sauce with herbs, or similar) or create your own using the passata and typical Italian herbs. Drain the mozzarella balls and dry them with a kitchen towel, then cut them into thin slices (2-3 mm). Knead the dough again and form it into a ball. Line one or more baking sheets with parchment paper or grease them (depending on the desired number, size, and shape of pizzas). Preheat the oven to maximum temperature using top/bottom heat (250–300°C, depending on the oven’s power). Sprinkle the baking sheets with a little flour and place a sufficient amount of dough in the center. It is very important to roll out the dough as thinly as possible, using a rolling pin or a round glass. If possible, the final thickness should be no more than 1 millimeter. The dough should also be lightly floured from time to time to prevent it from sticking to the utensils. Distribute the dough on the baking sheet according to the desired shape of the pizza. I recommend the traditional round shape, as it both looks nice and produces plenty of crispy edges. To do this, simply roll out the dough completely and shapelessly and press a large plate into the center of the already very thinly rolled out dough. Trim off any excess dough outside the mark made by the plate and roll over it again with the rolling pin. However, due to the lack of space in the oven, it’s a bit difficult to make for more than two people at once. However, thanks to the short baking time (see below), you can also bake them one after the other. Now pour the tomato sauce onto the dough. It’s important not to use too much sauce and not to cover the edge of the pizza with one and a half centimeters of sauce. It should look like a reddish coating, not a thick layer of tomato sauce. The dough should remain visible through the sauce! For a regular-sized round pizza, three tablespoons should be more than enough. Now add other ingredients to the pizza according to your taste. Again, I recommend not overdoing it with the quantity/thickness of the ingredients. Then distribute the mozzarella slices over the part of the pizza covered in tomato sauce (i.e., don’t cover the edges). For a round pizza, one mozzarella ball is sufficient. Place the pizza in the preheated oven and bake until all of the mozzarella is bubbling. This takes about 5 minutes at 300°C. Finally, top the finished pizza with some basil leaves and, if desired, sprinkle some oregano and/or pizza seasoning on top.