I’m back again with another food post that looks like somebody who has no concept of cooking, butchering a perfectly fine recipe. Just kidding, I think for my first homemade pizza I did a passable job. I made the crust and tomato sauce and everything, well my mom actually made the sauce but the point is I did the other 80% of it… *starts sweating* If you’d like to try out this surprisingly easy recipe yourself check out the recipe here! So, without further ado let’s delve into my dank kitchen for the third time.
Ingredients & Procedures : ★★★★☆ (Dough)
Starting off with the dough, I have to say that the crust was probably one of my most successful “dough” related recipes I’ve ever worked with. The proofing process went exceptionally well (which I will show later), but as someone who has always had problems working with yeast this was one of the best recipes I got. The ingredients for the pizza dough is also nothing exceptional, and the only ingredient a normal household that doesn’t bake often might not have is yeast 🌾. they sell them in packets and they’re cheap as hell though so if you’re ever contemplating on making your own crust just go to your nearest Walmart.
Before combining all my wet and dry ingredients, I activated my yeast with warm water 🚰 and sugar 🍬. I left it for 5-10 minutes as per the recipe, and it became a frothy little mess (picture 1). I would say that this step is important for me, JUST because I’ve always had issues with my dough rising. The last three times I’ve used yeast and actually left it by itself rather than just combining everything at once my doughs have all rose fairly nicely which often doesn’t happen. I was pleasantly shocked how well this dough came out to be honest… I’m shocked under my hands it stayed alive. I also added a bit more yeast than the ingredient ratio but whether or not that saved it? Beats me.
While I still had to knead the dough for around 10 minutes, it definitely took a significantly shorter time than most of my bread doughs. I make sure not to over flour my dough too much, so I only add a teaspoon or less when it gets too wet. Eventually it starts from an ugly little caterpillar (picture 3) and turns into an ugly little butterfly (picture 4)
Look at that RISE girl!!!!!!! Definitely one of my most successful and fullest rises I’ve ever accomplished, and it took only 30 minutes?? I shat… I was so happy, and I was kind of sad that this dough came out so nice for a crust. Just because I knew it was gonna be squashed under the pizza toppings. Regardless, I dumped this out on a floured surface and began rolling it out into a shape that kind of resembled a circle
I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m delusional but even in the top photo you can see how light and stretchy the dough seems. It’s very elastic and soft, while it does have some pull and I find it hard to make it into an even circular shape I think I did the best I could. I punched some fork holes in the crust and pre-baked it for 5 minutes. Overall, the process was actually quite easy and less tedious than I thought.
Ingredients & Procedures : ★★★★☆ (Sauce & Toppings)
As for the tomato sauce, I initially wanted to follow a generic recipe because I’ve never made pizza sauce before but I had too little of the ingredients all the people wanted so I just ended up making my own with whichever spice I had lying around. The amounts for each spice is kind of arbitrary I just taste test accordingly after tossing it all on the stove. The sauce is made more or less with… Half a diced tomato 🍅 and onion 🧅, a mixture of ketchup and water 💦, and a few shakes of oregano leaves 🍃, black pepper, and roasted garlic and peppers 🧄.
The procedure for making this sauce takes no more than 10 minutes… You pan-fry your onions and tomatoes until they’re a bit of a slobbery mess. add a bit of water and ketchup until it’s MORE of a slobbery mess. once the tomatoes and onions start breaking down you can add in the flavoring to your taste. My mom didn’t want the onions and tomatoes to fully disintegrate, but if you would like a smoother sauce you can always keep on cooking them or scrap them through a sieve to achieve that classic consistency.
As for my toppings, we just threw together whatever we had in the fridge. Which basically including some MORE tomatoes 🍅 and onions 🧅(trust me… I’m not the one who’s suggesting the overuse of these two), an old smokey weiner 🌭, grated cheddar cheese 🧀 and one single serrano pepper 🫑. Once all of those are chopped and sliced and diced, we were ready to construct our frankenpizza!
This is a very unconventional looking pizza… my mom kind of went haywire on the topping placements but she was excited and so was I. Once our toppings were loaded on, with our crust slightly pre-baked it went into the fire a second time until finally…
Results & Taste: ★★★★☆
TAAAAAAAADAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Being my first ever homemade pizza I consider this a success frankly… While I wish we skipped out on the tomatoes seeing as it made the pizza a little more wet than I wanted, I thought the overall taste and texture of the crust and toppings were deloycious. It had a nice hit of spice with the peppers and the crust was soft yet crispy! Take a look~
There’s a nice crunch that’s not dry, but look at the airiness of the crust. I’m proud of her your honor… I– *starts crying* Let’s look at one more up-close photo before we wrap up this incredibly long winded pizza post that is actually like 2 months late.
Overall : ★★★★☆
So! In conclusion… I’m Italian. I’m kidding. I’m Chinese. While I’m proud of the outcome of this pizza, I definitely think many people can do much better in many aspects. For some odd reason, the dough which I thought would be hard as hell to make was exceptionally easy for me. I think I was more cautious because I always have troubles with yeast, but this was the first time where I didn’t. I also made some tweaks to the original recipe that fit more to my liking and ingredients accessibility but otherwise, I remember enjoying this pizza very fondly even though I made it a couple months ago.
I’d recommend this to someone who is looking for a fun family activity and maybe I’ll make this for my dad today for Father’s Day too… Or we can just go to Dairy Queen. Anywho! My point still stands. It’s a fun recipe that can be customized to your preferences. The sky’s the limit with this, as long as your crust doesn’t turn out whack so if you decide to attempt this I’ll virtually pray that it doesn’t for you. Thanks for reading! 🍕
