Something I especially love about making my own pizza dough is that I can easily accommodate fussy eaters and large groups! You have the choice to make individual pizzas, a “regular” pizza or a rectangle pizza which provides options for different topping combinations and easier cutting for large gatherings as well as you can use whatever sort of sheet pan you have laying around! I’m lucky to have inherited a pizza pan when I moved out of my parents place but you could just as easily use a regular cookie sheet too!
Along with all the different ways you can form your dough the sky is also the limit with sauces and toppings! As per usual I’ll drop a few of my favourites below the recipe but don't let it block your creativity or intuition when you go to make your own!
First things first, you're gonna have to make your dough, I’ll drop the Short and Gritty here but if you need more of a refresher you can find the original recipe here.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups Flour
1 tsp Salt
2 1/2 tsp Yeast
1 1/2 tsp Sugar
2 tbsp Oil
1 cup Warm water
Directions:
1. Mix first two ingredients.
2a. If you're using active cry yeast include the next two ingredients.
2b. If you're using traditional yeast mix last four ingredients together and let sit for 10 minutes.
3. Add wet to dry, mix in the bowl until it comes together into a ball.
4. Turn out onto floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes adding small amounts of flour when it becomes too sticky.
5. Place back in the mixing bowl after greasing it and cover with a clean tea towel. Allow to rise for about an hour
PIZZA
Ingredients:
1 batch dough
~ 1/2 cup sauce of choice
~ 1/4 - 1/2 cup each (more or less to preference) toppings of choice
vegetables, proteins
~3/4 to 1 cup (more or less to preference) cheese
*pro tip* prepare any toppings you need while the dough is proofing to be efficient with your time and also help to stop from your dough sitting too long after you’ve rolled it out. You should also precook your meat now if you haven't already; just keep in mind it will add a little heat and remove a little humidity from your kitchen.So now that you've proofed your dough in a bowl for about an hour, turn it out onto a lightly floured counter and roll it out into the shape (or shapes) you're looking for. You want it to be pretty thin. We are going to let it rise again so keep that in mind for your personal preference of crust thickness. I like to fold the edges back in to give the outer crust a little extra height sometimes.
*pro tip* If you want to get super fancy you can throw some cheese around the edge and fold in the crust to make stuffed crust pizza! Just make sure you seal the open edge to keep that ooey gooey goodness inside.Once you’ve rolled out your dough brush it with a little bit of oil and flip it onto a greased pan of your choosing. I really like this round pizza pan but any sheet pan will do. It's really important to do this now and not after you've got toppings on it!
Slather on your sauce of choice, when I'm rushed or feeling lazy I like to opt for a premade pasta sauce like Classico as there is almost always an open one in my fridge. Of course you can make your own or even opt for something that isn't tomato based!
*witchy tip* while spreading you can use the same technique as stirring to add intention (clockwise to draw in and counterclockwise to banish). You can also use your sauce to draw sigils before spreading it out fully.
Hopefully you followed my pro tip above and have all your toppings prepared from cutting of vegetables, precooking any meats and shredding cheese. Now it’s as simple as throwing your toppings on and covering it in cheese.*witchy tip* Now's a great time to place your toppings with intention. Just like we talked about in the intentions post you can tell your ingredients why they’re being added as you place them on top.Once you've arranged things the way you'd like let the dough rise for about 10 to 15 minutes while you oven preheats to 375 and bake for 20 minutes.
*pro tip* Just like with a loaf you can brush the crust with an egg wash (or oil or butter) to have it come out a deeper brown colour.
Voila! You have a pizza made from fresh dough!
Now as promised here are some of my favourite topping combinations:
Tomato sauce, green olives, pepperoni and mozzarella.
Basil pesto, black olives, red onion, chicken and goat cheese.
BBQ sauce, chicken, sauteed peppers and onion.
Of course you can mix and match any and all. You can make something that barely resembles pizza such as using burger toppings! The sky is the limit and I'd love to see what you’ve got cooking!
As for the metaphysical obviously this has so many ways it can change with the toppings so I’d like to focus more on what pizza itself might suggest. I see pizza as something you share with many people; everyone gets a piece of the same pie. So the two biggest things I feel are togetherness and community. Therefore I see pizza as being something that brings people together. So, if you feel a divide building, maybe it’s time to make a dedicated pizza for this person and sit down and share it. Think about adding toppings and intentions that promote communication, openness, acceptance and love. These might include green peppers, yellow peppers, tomatoes, and red onion and if you both like blue cheese that would be a fun one to throw in. My focus for choosing these was more to the colour magic side of things. I can get into that in a future post if you’re interested! I chose some for chakra colour associations (green peppers for heart and blue cheese for throat) and others because of what I associate colour with (red tomato with love and yellow pepper with openness and acceptance.)
Another way to interpret the sharing aspect is to bring together a group that is just meeting for the first time. Think about how many new friends you made in school or at a sporting event sharing a slice. I would choose similar ingredients to the ones above or keep it simple to make everyone feel welcome and put your intentions more into the dough and how you spread the sauce.
Let me know what kind of elements you see pizza bringing into our lives; what do you associate with it? Check out the sidebar to find out where else you can do that or drop a comment below!
Short and Gritty
Ingredients:
1 batch dough
~ 1/2 cup sauce of choice
~ 1/4 cup each (more or less to preference, more cheese) toppings of choice
cheese, vegetables, proteins
Directions:
1. make one batch dough and proof in a greased mixing bowl for about 1 hour
2. roll dough out into deired pizza shape on a ligtly floured surface
3. slather with sauce and top with toppings
4. let rise about 15 minutes while your oven preheats to 375
5. bake for 20 minutes
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