Every so often, I start craving restaurant-style, thin crust pizza. At specialty pizza restaurants, I’d often order a margherita pizza and stare in awe at the simplicity of the whole thing. I was absolutely in love with the flavorful sauce, and sparse bubbles of mozzarella cheese, and the light and crispy crust.
I haven’t had much luck with making pizza at home; I just couldn’t understand how only a few ingredients could make such a great pizza.
Now, I realize just how easy it is to make it at home! It’s actually quite simple. I think I’d just been making pizza wrong all my life, which is quite strange considering my love for pizza (PIZZA YOU ARE MY #1!).
Margherita Pizza
Makes 2 8″-10″ pizzas
Ingredients:
For the crust:
- 2 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dry active yeast
- 1 cup warm water (about 110 degrees F)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
For the sauce:
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- a pinch of garlic salt
- a pinch of oregano
- a pinch of black pepper
Toppings:
- 1/2 cup fresh mozzarella
- 4 basil leaves, shredded
Directions:
First we are going to make the dough!
1. Mix together the salt and flour in a large mixing bowl
2. In another small bowl, mix together the warm water, yeast, and olive oil. Then add to the flour and mix until it turns into dough.
Let rise for an hour. While the dough rises, it’s time to make the tomato sauce.
3. Mix together the tomato paste, olive oil, garlic salt, oregano, and black pepper.
Preheat the oven after the dough has risen for 40-45 minutes. Preheat to 525 degrees F.
4. Cut up the basil leaves into strips and slice the mozzarella into small chunks.
5. On a pizza pan, roll out half the dough into a large circle. Try to make the dough as thin as possible while you shape it into a circle.
Store leftover dough in the fridge, covered, for up to 24 hours.
4. Once you’re happy with the thickness of the crust, spread the sauce all over the dough until about 1/4 to 1/2 inches away from the edge. Then layer the pizza with mozzarella and basil. If you want to enhance the flavor, add a little more oregano all over the pizza.
5. Bake the pizza for 8-10 minutes. Keep a close eye on the pizza, it can go from almost cooked to burnt very quickly. Remove from the oven and let cool for a couple of minutes, but serve as soon as possible! This pizza is best when it’s straight from the oven.
