Green Leaf Shape

The Ultimate Guide To Making Perfect Pizza At Home

The best flour to use

Strong Italian 00 flour, or pizza flour, is the best flour to give a crisp, light crust with lots of big, airy pockets.

Making dough

You can knead by hand or in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. It usually takes around 10 minutes.

Allow the dough to rise

Leaving enough time for the dough to rise will give it a better structure and improve the flavour.

Rolling out the dough

Once the dough is ready to shape into pizzas, it will be stretchy and pliable, so you can pull it into shape with your hands.

Sauce: fresh tomatoes

A fresh tomato sauce for pizza needs a specific type of cooking tomato, namely San Marzano.

Sauce: passata

For a speedy, easy sauce, try using passata – tomato sauce which has been strained of its skin and seeds.

Cheese: block mozzarella

Mass-produced block mozzarella is used for commercial pizzas, as well as for home-cooked. It's quite solid, easy to grate, melts very well without burning and becomes quite stretchy.

Getting pizza into a hot oven

Use a pizza paddle or a rimless baking sheet, well dusted with semolina or flour. Then it simply slides off into the oven without sticking.

Invest in a pizza cutter

They're not expensive and cut pizza perfectly, so it's worth buying a pizza cutter. They also make easy work of cutting pastry, especially difficult-to-handle filo and puff pastry.