Baking your Best Pizza
Bake the best pizza ever. Every time.
Prepping your dough for the oven is just as important as what (and how many) ingredients you put on it. Sometimes less is more, and sometimes more is fantastic. For these pizzas we’re going with less toppings because we want the crust to stand out just as much as the ingredients on top of it.
My favourite baking method is the use of my baking steel, but a 12” cast iron pan is also a great choice— I encourage you to use whatever surface works best for you. Just make sure it can handle 500°F.
My other pro tip is to keep your dough refrigerated right up until you’re ready to shape, top, and bake your pizza. The dough is much easier to handle when it’s chilled, and paired with a well-floured pizza peel you’ll avoid the dreaded destruction and heartbreak that comes with dough that sticks. —CFG
Ingredients
Prepared pizza dough, ~350 grams
1 tbsp flour
12” cast iron pan -OR- baking steel
Pizza peel
Turning peel (optional, but very helpful)
Olive oil
Your choice of pizza toppings
Directions
Place baking steel in the oven and preheat to 500°F for ~60min.
Prepare your pizza toppings and assembly station.
Remove your stored pizza dough from the fridge and place on a well-floured surface.
Press down in the middle of the ball while leaving about 1” of the outer rim undeflated. Work your way around the ball lightly spreading and pressing while keeping the rim intact.
With both hands, gently lift the pizza off the counter by the rim so the dough hangs down and gravity stretches the dough for you.
Run the rim of the dough through your fingers and work your way around the dough several times to allow gravity to pull the entire circumference of the dough.
Repeat this action several times until the dough is evenly thinned out and stretched enough to form a 12” pizza crust.
Use 1tbsp of flour and lightly flour the pizza peel. Transfer the dough to the peel and shape to fit ensuring you don’t spread it too thin or degas any of the air pockets in the dough.
Layer a few ingredients thinly onto the pizza dough, then brush or drizzle a small amount of olive onto the exposed rim of the pizza.
Cook the pizza for ~15 minutes, using your turning peel to rotate the pizza halfway through the cooking time. (If the oven seems too hot, lower the temperature to 475F and raise cook time by 2-3 min.)
Remove the pizza from the oven and allow the pie to rest for 2-3 minutes so toppings can set.
Slice, serve and enjoy.
