My family adores pizza. It is the one food that everyone can agree on.
We eat all sorts of pizza made at home – pizza buns, pizza on french bread, pizza on pre-made crusts, pizza on pre-made dough and frozen pizza.
Our home is out of town a bit and no one will deliver pizza, so we have to get creative!
Craftsy {Kids Activities Blog sponsor} has a FREE online class on making Perfect Pizza at Home with Chef Peter Reinhart. I took it over the last few days because (although a bit skeptical) I want to make perfect pizza at home!
Just a note about taking Craftsy online classes: This is the third one I have taken and I love them! I use the iPad app which works very similar to watching them on the computer. It allows me to watch it whenever I have a few minutes. The classes are set up in chapters, so later when I am cooking, I can refer back to the exact place I need and watch while I try to attempt the same thing!
Let’s Make Pizza at Home!
Chef Peter Reinhart started by explaining why pizza crust is more challenging at home and ways to overcome those obstacles. He provided 4 different crust recipes and then went through how to best make the dough for the perfect pizza. He broke it down into easy steps that I followed without any fancy machinery. All the recipes are available for free download as part of the lesson.
I decided to make the American-Style “Neapolitan” Pizza Dough recipe that he provided which was simply bread flour, salt, yeast, water, sugar and olive oil. It took me just a few minutes to mix the ingredients and then let the dough rest. Chef Reinhart has a system to stretch and fold the dough several times over the next half hour for the best dough texture. I followed that and then put the dough in the fridge for the day pulling it out 90 minutes before dinner.
As part of the course, he also shows how to make some popular pizza toppings: pizza sauce, herb oil, spicy garlic oil, and basil pesto. There is a bonus recipe for gluten-free crust which he shows how to do in an additional class segment.
I ended up simply using a favorite jar of pizza sauce and low-moisture Mozzarella cheese for our pizza toppings. My pizzas weren’t the perfectly round ones that Chef Reinhart showed after a few flips of the dough, but he has had more practice!
My kids and I followed Chef Reinhart’s recommendation of preparing the pizza on a peal and then sliding it onto a pizza stone in a very hot oven – mine was set at 550 degrees with the convection feature on. It only took about 5 minutes for our pizzas to be done. It was done even in the middle which is something I have never accomplished at home before.
I was shocked at how ridiculously delicious this pizza was! I am not exaggerating when I say that the pizza crust was better than any pizza that is available to us locally at restaurants. My husband said it tasted just like our favorite pizza which is at Hernando’s in Winter Park, CO. My kids ate piece after piece.
Total success!
The good news is that it is easy to make a large batch. The dough will last up to 3 days in the fridge or could be separated into single pizza balls and then frozen.
We can’t wait to try the other three dough recipes. I highly recommend this course! I learned so much about how to make pizza and the results were quickly eaten for dinner.
More Great Pizza Recipes From Kids Activities Blog
We have a list of the 5 best flatbread ideas that you should make today!
Try this delicious pizza pasta recipe.
Thanks so much to Craftsy for being a Kids Activities Blog sponsor. All opinions expressed are my own.
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