Restaurant Style Wood-Oven Pizza

Start by activating your yeast which is the most important part of this recipe. If your yeast does not activate start this step all over. If it does not activate it means that your water was too hot, too cold, or the yeast was old or bad.

In a bowl: add the first three ingredients to a bowl and whisk. Add in the active dry yeast, lukewarm water, and the teaspoon of sugar and give it a quick whisk and leave it to activate and foam up for 5-10 min. Once it’s activated we can proceed.

You can now add 3 cups of flour to your counter or in a big bowl or the stand mixer. Since I am not using a mixer and making this dough the old school way I will make a well in the centre of the dough with my hand and I’ll add my salt and once I make the well I can begin to slowly pour in my activated foamed up yeast mixture a little at a time as I mix it and combine it with my hands.

Once you poured in your yeast as you mix with your hands you will find you have a dough ball. If your dough is too sticky add a little sprinkle of flour at a time. Your dough should be soft so that you can knead it for at least 5 minutes.

If you have a mixer, your mixer will do all the work for you but if you don’t, like I mentioned in step 2, knead your soft dough for 5 minutes on your counter.

Once your dough is kneaded, shape it into a ball and oil it up with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, add it to a bowl and let it rest covered with plastic wrap in a warm dry place away from drafts. This can be in an oven, microwave, or cupboard for 1-1.5 hours until it has doubled or tripled in size.

When dough has risen in your bowl, uncover it and punch it in the middle so it deflates. Flour your counter with a sprinkle of flour, place your dough on top and flour your dough with a sprinkle of flour as well. Cut your dough in 4 equal pieces so that you have 4 personalized pizzas. Take a rolling pin and roll each dough ball out into a nice thin circle as best as you can.

Make sure you have all your toppings of choice ready and in a skillet (pan) on the stove, turn your stove on medium or medium-high. Once the skillet it hot, add the first rolled out pizza in there. Take a spoon and add some sauce making sure to leave a border for the crust, add your shredded cheeses of choice or toppings and drizzle it lightly with olive oil. Once the bottom of the pizza has beautiful charred and golden spots we can now transfer it to the oven on broil only if your pan has a metal handle.

Important: if your pan has a metal handle the pan can go in the oven directly but if your pan has a plastic handle do not put it in your oven. You will have to get a baking sheet lined with parchment paper & transfer your pizza from your skillet to the baking dish and then put it in the oven on broil for 5 minutes only until the top bubbles up until golden and blistered. You can place it on the second last oven rack closer to the top. Once pizza is done you can garnish is with fresh basil, cut and enjoy.

How to freeze pizza dough? After the dough has risen and punched back: divide the dough into your preferred portion sizes, wrap loosely in cling film and seal each ball of dough tightly in a freezer bag. When you want to make it, thaw the dough overnight in the fridge, or for 2-3 hours at room temperature, then roll out and bake as per my instructions above.