The Art of Making Pizza: How to Make a Perfect Dough and Design It with Toppings

Hello dear Hivers! 💖 Hope you're having a wonderful day! 🌻

Today, I’m sharing with you making pizza that we learned from our Bread and Pastry Production class. It is one of the technical-vocational courses and trainings provided by TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) here in the Philippines. Just a little background on how I got into it, I decided to enroll because it’s free and I wanted to learn more about baking. I also wanted to learn by hands-on training, which is very practical than self-learning from videos online, which could incur me a lot of costs through trial and error because some tutorials were misleading, and just show only the best output, not the behind-the-scenes. Since TESDA provides high-quality training, I grabbed that opportunity. All the baking materials and ingredients were also provided by them. Plus, you can take-home the finished products to share it with your family and friends.

Baking is a form of art because it combines scientific precision with creativity to turn simple ingredients into delicious treats. Bakers use their passion and knowledge of flavor, texture, and appearance to express themselves through unique creations.

What makes each pizza unique is through its toppings, as well as the shape of the dough. If you want to make pizza at home, you have the freedom to choose your own ingredients for the toppings, as well as how you’re going to design it. The common shape of pizza is round, but you can also make it rectangular, or form into any shapes that you want.

My bad I wasn’t able to take pictures of the ingredients and procedures for making the dough. I’m carefully following my instructor while he’s demonstrating it. But you can easily find the ingredients at home or from groceries. For the toppings, I’ll just share the ingredients for a Classic Cheese Pizza because it’s common for pizzas to have cheese and tomato sauce. It depends on what you’d like to add.

INGREDIENTS

A) Dough:

• 1 tsp. Yeast
• 1/4 tsp. Granulated/Refined Sugar (White Sugar) or Honey
• 3/4 cup warm water (should not be hot, or the yeast will die)
• 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• 1 tbsp. Cooking Oil

B) Toppings (for a Classic Cheese Pizza):

• 16 oz. (160g) Grated Cheese
• 200 g Tomato Sauce

PROCEDURE

A) Testing if your Yeast is active:

The yeast is crucial for making the dough rise. If your yeast doesn’t work, you’re going to waste other ingredients and start over again. The sugar serves as the food for the yeast, while the salt controls the growth of the yeast, tightening the gluten strands in the dough. Without it, your dough will rise or double in size faster than normal which leads to less flavor and weaker structure. Too much salt and overly hot water will kill the yeast, so take note, just use warm water and be careful not to put salt directly into yeast. You might be mistaken the salt as sugar.

1. Add the yeast to the warm water.
2. Add sugar on it, then mix. Set this aside for 5 minutes or until you see it foamy or forming bubbles on top.

B) Making the Dough:

1.   Add the flour to the previous mixture. Then add the salt and oil.
   

2.   Mix together using a wooden spoon until the dough becomes too difficult to mix. You can use a mixer for this, but I just made a small amount so it’s more convenient to mix it manually.
   

3.   Prepare a big bowl and brush some oil on it. Set aside, we’re going to use it later for the dough fermentation.
   

4.   Dump the dough onto a clean, lightly floured surface. Flour your hands because kneading is going to be sticky. 
   

5.   Knead the dough with your hands for about 10 minutes or until it becomes smooth and does not stick to your fingers. (Kneading procedure: Press the dough with the heel of your palm, pushing and stretching it away from you, then fold it back towards you. Continue rolling and folding for the specified time)
   

6.   Place the dough into the slightly oiled bowl you prepared from step 3 and cover it with a damp cloth. Let the dough rise or double in size for 30-40 minutes. (In this step, the dough undergoes fermentation process.)
   

7.   10 minutes before the time of fermentation ends, pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
   

8.   Once the dough has risen, punch the dough with the knuckles of your hands to release the air. (Punching the dough releases carbon dioxide produced from fermentation which removes uneven air pockets in the dough)
   

9.   Prepare a pizza pan, or any baking pan that you want, and brush some oil on the surface.
   

10.  Place the dough in the slightly oiled pan and spread out the edges into a circle (or your preferred shape, or just follow the shape of your baking pan) with hands or using a rolling pin to form a thin crust.
    

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C) Adding the Toppings and Baking Procedure:

1.   Spread the tomato sauce over the crust, leaving a 1-inch rim.
   

2.   Top with cheese and other toppings of your choice. (If you’re going to add some meaty toppings like ham, hotdogs, ground meat, etc., you can slightly fry or microwave them beforehand to prevent the crust being burnt while waiting for these toppings to be cooked inside the oven.)
   

3.   Place the pizza in the pre-heated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown, the cheese is bubbling, and the toppings are cooked.
   

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There you go! The pizza is ready 😊 I’m actually trying to copy the Pepperoni Cream Cheese Pizza from S&R because it’s my favorite, however on my first try, the cheese got slightly burnt and the toppings misaligned. While inside the oven, my crust expanded got thicker. That's why it’s not yet golden brown even after the 20 minutes baking time, but the cheese melted and the toppings were already cooked. So, lesson learned, that it’s okay to spread out the dough thin and cut the edges to reduce the dough if it exceeds the pan because it will still rise while inside the oven.

And here are the pizzas also made by my fantastic classmates.

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We’re so happy that we’re able to make pizzas on our own and brought home each finished products to share with our families and friends. We’re glad that they also liked the pizzas we made from this class 💖

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This post is my entry for ASEAN Hive Community Challenge #169: ASEAN Artistry ✨

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_{📷 Text and Photos by @wanderelle 💗}

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Thank you very much for spending your time reading my post! 💖 Have you tried baking pizza at home? Let me know in the comments! 😊

Love lots,
Elle 😘