Pizza Margherita! (CONTEST IS CLOSED)
Today our new book is finally available and we couldn’t be happier to welcome Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day
We like to make the classic Pizza Margherita, it’s the ultimate in Italian toppings. In fact, the colors resemble the Italian flag and the pizza was named for the Italian queen, Margherita, because she fell in love with it. Nothing but tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil. So pure and so tasty.
We want to invite you to visit us while we are on book tour. To find dates and cities please visit our Events page. Hope to meet you!
Pizza Margherita
Olive Oil Dough from Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day:
3 1/4 cups lukewarm water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon Yeast
1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons Kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar
7 1/2 cups (scoop and sweep) unbleached all-purpose flour
Toppings:
1/3 cup tomato (Sauce recipe p. 109 or drain diced tomato straight from the can)
3 ounces Fresh Mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
Fresh Basil
Olive oil for drizzling over the top before baking
Pinch of salt
Flour, cornmeal or parchment for the pizza peel
To make the dough: Use our dump and stir method of mixing the dough in a 5-quart Container with Lid, using a Danish Dough Whisk or wooden spoon. Then cover the container, not airtight and let it rest for about 2 hours on the counter. The dough can then be used right away, but it is much easier to handle once it has been thoroughly chilled. The dough can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 weeks!
To make the pizza:
Preheat your oven to the highest setting, which will be 500 to 550°F, with a pizza stone in the bottom 1/3 of the oven. Depending on the thickness of your stone this can take between 20 and 40 minutes.
Pull out an 8-ounce piece of dough from your bucket and quickly form it into a ball, no more than 30 seconds of work. Let it sit on the counter while you gather your toppings.
Roll the ball out into a 1/8-inch-thick round. If the ball is resisting just let it sit for about 5 minutes and it will relax and allow you to work with it.
Sprinkle a Pizza Peel with flour. Spread the tomato over the dough.
Place the chunks of cheese over the sauce and drizzle with the olive oil.
Check for doneness in about 8 to 10 minutes, turn the pizza around if it seems to be browning on one side more than the other. It may take up to 5 more minutes.
Let the pizza cool slightly, so the cheese can set a little before cutting with a Pizza Cutter. This is best done on a cooling rack if you want to keep a crisp bottom crust.
My fav pizza is Margharita. Can’t seem to get enough of this pizza. Love your first book! I am entering my DH for the contest. He works and lives in Louisiana. Good luck with the new cookbook!
I am excited to see that you have a third book. I have a basic baking question for you.
If I make a recipe requiring a loaf pan, can I shape it the night before, stick it in the pan in the fridge, and then bake it the next afternoon straight from the fridge?
I don’t get home from work during the week until 5, so I’d love to be able to just stick your breads in the oven then, rather than shaping and waiting for the rise that day. I have let breads rise in the fridge before, but never your recipes.
I’d love to start using your recipes during the week as well, not just the weekends.
Hi Dana,
Yes, we highly recommend that you form the dough the night before, place it in the greased pan, cover loosely with plastic and refrigerate. The next day you can place it on the counter while you are preheating the oven and then bake it, even if it isn’t completely warmed through. It will have risen slowly over the many hours of refrigeration.
Thanks, Zoë
Cheese and caramelized onions instead of traditional red sauce.
Hard to choose a favorite, but I love kalamata olive and portabello mushroom pizza. Sometimes I add caramelized onions and usually plenty of garlic. Love your first two books!
proscuitto, kimchi, blue cheese, mozzerella, and green peppers.
We like homemade New York style pizza!
My favorite pizza is flatbread pizza topped with fresh figs, carmelized onions, proscuitto and blue cheese. it’s beecome a hit in my house. I love your books. I just put in a new cooks kitchen and bread has become a family affair for us.
I love chicken and roasted garlic with a cream sauce on pizza. In fact, I love all pizza!
We can never get away from ham and pineapple, or pepperoni and pineapple, everyone loves it in our family….
Roasted garlic, chevre, and mozzarella! Simple but tasty!
I made a left over green curry calzone a fsw months ago using 5-minute bread that I loved. I haven`t been able to replicate it yet. But am still hoping. Can’t wait to buy the new book.
Mushrooms, olives and roasted garlic. Can’t be beat.
I can’t think of a pizza that I don’t like, but pepperoni is my favorite. I’ve been making pizza with your dough every week and am so happy with your new pizza book!
Waiting impatiently for Amazon to send the book out. Looks like I have to wait until Thursday. Can’t wait
We LOVE pizza! I like almost all kinds, but Hawaiian and vegie are my favorites.
I have never met a pizza I didn’t like! If I could only choose one, it would be pepperoni and mushroom. I can’t wait to try the Margherita though!
I really appreciate that in an age of “tastes like takeout” pizza that you can cook at home, people are getting into making “tastes like homemade” pizza napoletana. And you couldn’t improve much more than the margherita variety!
Thanks for sharing.
My favorite pizza is the “Mystic’s Pizza” served at Angeli’s in New Orleans. My husband and I will travel there just for the pizza. It consists of garlic oil, roasted red pepper, red onions, mozzarella and feta cheese. So delicious!
My favorite pizza is sauteed greens with roasted onion, green olives, and thinly-sliced meyer lemons. I use the dough recipes in your first book with great results for pizza, and can’t wait to get hands on the new book for more recipes and inspiration!
My favorite pizza (well I have 2 actually) I make a great TACO PIZZA and great BBQ CHICKEN w/pineapple PIZZA !!!!
looking forward to the book!!!!!
Absolute favorite pizza: Chewy whole grain crust, white sauce, smoked mozzarella cheese, medley of sauteed fresh mushrooms (in red wine and peanut oil), onions and roasted garlic.
Spinach, mozzarella, olives and almonds. I recently moved to Minneapolis from New York and need to learn how to make pizza, I’m missing great slices.
White Pizza with sausage and rapini
How about the old standby sausage, mushroom and onions
Favorite pizza? Goat cheese w/ arugula!
I love a pizza with fig jam, proscuitto, caramelized onion and blue cheese.
I love the olive oil dough for thin crust cheese pizza and pile on onions, red peppers, olives, and just a few japapenos for good measure (not too many of those.)
Hard to pick a favorite- we love caramelized onions, goat cheese, and figs… but that’s just one. Also love pizza on the grill.
My favorite pizza is the traditional fire-grilled pizza called a Waikiki pizza that consists of tomato sauce topped with mozerrella, canadian bacon, pineapple, cinnamon and shaved almonds! Delicious!
I love pizza with lots of veggies and mushrooms, but I’ll take any kind. Can’t wait to get my copy of this book!
Having spent a decent portion of my early life in NJ, where the predominent style of land use planning is known as “pizza shop on every corner,” I’m a traditionalist at heart and will never turn down a good slice of NY style pepperoni. However, in my own cooking life now, flavors of SE Asia, Latin America and the American south prevail. Consequently, my pizza tastes have expanded as well. I like to use the flavors of my favorite cuisines as pizza toppings. Right now my favorite flavor is based on a recipe for an Indian dish, called “uppama,” which is eaten as a side dish or a breakfast staple in many parts of India, and is cream of wheat based. An “Uppama pizza” has tomatoes, curry leaf, cumin seed, garlic, ginger, fresh chile and fresh paneer or mozzarella cheese and green peas. If I don’t have everything on hand, I’ll sometimes just top the pizza with the cheese and some tomato chutney from Suvir Saran’s “American Masala.”
I love chipotles in adobo sauce on pizza with some smoky mozzarella. It’s heaven.
Simple Itialian sausage,mozzarella cheese and spicy tomato sause on thin crust.
Nothing like fresh made “thin” crusts like this with our homemade tomato sauce from our daughter’s garden bounty of roma tomatoes, fresh basil, buffalo mozzarella drizzled with EVOO. Makes me drool right now! Thanks for your great recipes and ideas. My family are wheat farmers – and I have always loved whole grain goodness from the field to the table.
Figs have been wonderful lately and love combination of figs, goat cheese and basil on pizza
My favorite pizza is made using your original master recipe for the Boule. It is such a versatile dough and makes the most wonderful pizza crust, my family and friends all love it! Toppings are secondary to the lovely crust, it’s what makes it so good.
I love the Margherita it’s the best!!!!!!
i must have been living under an upside down broiler pan because i JUST discovered your books yesterday – very happily, i might add! i placed my order today for the books through amazon and can’t wait to start making a variety of breads. as for pizza, there’s nothing like a beautifully made margherita pizza by someone who knows what they’re doing 🙂 thanks! ps. nice photos on your site, too!
Bacon, ham and pineapple, yum !
Haven’t tried other toppings yet but being able to make pizza at home is so amazing to me that I’m satisfied with the basics for now. Love your first book. Can’t wait to get the latest one!
love vegetarian pizza with spinach, artichoke, and mushrooms and lots of cheese. mmmm
I love sausage, mushroom and onion on pizza. We’ve also been doing pizza dough on the grill recently, and get amazing crunchy, burnt pieces. Yum!
I like a chicken with bacon and sweet chili sauce pizza.
I don’t know if the contest is still open, but I love anything on a thick pizza crust. We’ve been experimenting with different doughs from the HB book for the crusts. My kids all seem to like pretty normal toppings: ground beef, mozzerella, pepperoni. I’m not sure how they will react to the brussel sprouts pizza. : ) I am tempted to try them on it, though.
Any pizza! I like to keep it simple with one veggie and pineapple. Yummmm.
I love a regular crust lots of meat, vegies, and cheese pizza. Can’t wait to get your book and be more creative 🙂
I love pizza with meat with vegies whole wheat buckwheat thin thick really does it matter any pizza is great as long as it’s homemade.
My personal favorite is kalamata olives, feta, onions, jalapenos and olive oil on the grill.
I just got your book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from my local library. I’ve made one master recipe and two loaves of bread. My husband says it’s the best bread he has tasted and I’m sure that this book will be purchased and become a staple in our home. Thanks for your work. I’m quite excited about making bread again.
My favorite is dough, then homemade basil pesto, then fresh sliced tomatoes, then mozz/parmesan cheese for the top…yum!!! simple but great! almost maragarita pizza.
I use the olive oil dough for pizza. My personal favorite just happens to be Margherita! However,I do add a bit of crush fresh garlic under the cheese. I love extra-extra garlic in everything.