Pizza night!

Ryan Loyd • November 10, 2024

What started at our apartment building is now a fun framily tradition!

Do not even think about ordering out. It's homemade, all the way.

Fresh ingredients, homemade dough and a lot of laughter.

When Kyle and I lived at The Baldwin, we became close with a few fellow residents. What started out as mixing and mingling in the clubroom turned out to be trips to the lake, happy hour Wednesdays and something that has stuck to this day: personal sized homemade pizzas on select Friday evenings complete with appetizers, drinks and board and card games after.

It's become one of my favorite things in the world. I love inviting our girlfriends to hang out with us and Luke for this little thing that has become our own little thing we do together... usually just the four of us, but sometimes a few more.

I'm not even sure how it technically began. All I know is that we were getting into making dough, I had a Ninja Foodie Grill, and that we liked to eat and hang out. Somehow that combination got a rise out of us and so began our pizza night tradition. Over time we've experimented with large pizzas, grilling the pizza on the Big Green Egg and even dabbled in more exotic pizza toppings. But the mainstay is a perfect personal size pizza that you can customize to your liking with a combination of things like marinara, pesto, Italian sausage, pepperoni, a mix of cheeses like Mozzarella and herbs. Last time, I tried out a sweet and savory goat cheese and pear combo on top of homemade pesto.

But first, the dough.

man on a bike with a child in a seat on the front

Probably, and arguably, the most important part of pizza night is the taste and integrity of the dough. We have tried many recipes and actually rely on a rotating list of recipes for our dough, and we have found that they each provide a slightly different texture and feel. All my life, every time I ate pizza, I'd toss the crust. That is, until I found out how amazing crust can be with the right texture and flavor! I tend to favor a crunchy and herby crusts.

Listen! This is exactly the kind of crust that I really love to eat (not toss).

And it's so satisfying to have made it with you very own hands just a few hours before show time with friends or family. Let's check out a few of our trusty dough recipes that turn out incredible crusts. Let's go over some ingredients as well as specific recipes that have worked really well for this pizza aficionado.

Ingredients
Flour

Dough for making pizza needs to be stretchy and pliable, so it must have a greater gluten content. Here are a few of the most common flours for pizza doughs.

Bread flour is generally considered the best type for pizza dough. It also has more gluten than other choices like all-purpose flour. Bread flour results in a tougher, more elastic crust.
00 flour is an extremely fine Italian flour, and is another top choice for making pizza dough.
All purpose flour is also a suitable choice for making pizza dough.
Whole wheat flour

Olive Oil
Yeast
Water
Salt
Optional seasonings: garlic powder, thyme, oregano, etc
Recipes
These are a few of the dough recipes we return to again and again.

Sugar Spun Run describes this recipe as the best and I have to say, recipes that say this have a really big impact on me. I also judge a recipe heavily by the photo. Sam from SSR has direction for both all purpose and bread flour.
Love & Lemons is a site I turn to frequently for a variety of recipes. The dough recipe from L&L is quite good with the recipe using all purpose flour or a combination all purpose and bread. The same question is posed on the recipe: Which flour is the best for pizza dough? 00 flour, bread flour, all-purpose flour, and whole wheat flour can all be used to make excellent pizza dough. "00 flour is highly refined, finely milled white flour. It’s a key ingredient in Neapolitan-style pizza. It gives the dough a smooth texture and helps it bake into a crisp and chewy crust. Bread flour has more gluten than all-purpose flour. Using it in pizza dough will result in an especially chewy crust. For this pizza dough recipe, I recommend using all-purpose flour. It’s affordable and easy to find." Voila!
The New York Times Cooking recipe calls for all purpose flour and is a very solid go to. It will make four 10" pizzas. Of course, you'll get more of the personal size pizzas we like to make.
Finally, our PIZZA: The Ultimate Cookbook by Barbara Caracciolo (author of CRUSTS) calls for bread or 00 flour, yeast, water, salt and olive oil.

Truly, the recipes are similar to one another with variations in the flours, including whole wheat which we did not mention, and whether it's seasoned with garlic powder, thyme or any number of fun and creative ideas you might have!

Putting the pizazz on your pizza

Half the fun of making the personal size pizzas is to make it your own! We gather a wide range of toppings, from sauces and pesto to veggies, herbs, fruit, cheeses, meats and more. Similar to my views on salsa - where eggs get verde (green) salsa and beans are better with roja (red) salsa, I have feelings on sauces. I think that pesto goes best with things like pork sausage, basil and perhaps a fruit - like pear - while red salsa is best with traditional cheeses like mozzarella and a pizza staple - pepperoni.

But anything goes. The more unconventional, the better I say. I'm known for making my small personal size pizza a duo-sided pie with red sauce on one side and pesto on the other.

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It's so eyeopening how one of these small personal size pizzas will fill you up! I think I'd be able to scarf down two, when really I can only just get through one of my deliciously made-just-for-me pizzas.

Let's make pizza!

Wanna dive right in? Here we go. We'll use the Quick Pizza Dough recipe from PIZZA: The Ultimate Cookbook, mentioned above in recipes.

Ingredients

3 1/3 tsp active dry yeast or 2 1/2 tsp instant yeast
15.5 oz or 440 g water
23.2 oz or 660 g bread flour or 00 flour, plus more as needed
1 tbsp or 17 g table salt
Olive oil, as needed

Directions

If using active dry yeast, warm 3 1/2 tbsp or 50 g of the water until it is about 105 degrees. Add the water to the yeast in a bowl and gently stir. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Instant yeast does not need to be proofed.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast and water and work the mixture until it just holds together.
If kneading by hand, transfer the dough to a flour-dusted surface. Work it until it's smooth and elastic.
Add the salt and knead until the dough is developed, elastic, and extensible, about 5 minutes. Form the dough into a ball and place it in a lightly greased airtight container that's at least 3 times bigger. Let rest in a naturally warm spot (in the oven with the light on is a good option) until it has doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Transfer the dough to a floured work surface, divide it into four pieces, and shape them into balls. Placed the rounds in a greased baking dish and with high edges, leaving enough space between rounds so that they won't touch when fully risen. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rest for 40 minutes to 1 hour before using to make pizza.
Personal pizzas: If you're making the personal pizzas like us, you can divide the dough into at least two more pieces. But play around with it.
When the second rise is finished, roll the dough according to the pizza size you're making - 10" or so for the large and 6" or so for a personal. Using a fork, pick the dough in several spots.
Stack the rolled out rounds of the personal doughs on top of each other, separated by parchment paper. Par bake the personal pizzas, one or two at a time (depending on space), for several minutes. When they are puffed up slightly, remove from oven or grill and allow guests to top their pizzas with desired toppings. Place back in oven or grill at 500 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

Don't forget the games!

Pizza nights are just one part of the fun. We usually make a bruschetta before we dive into personalizing our pizzas. (We'll make the dough and park bake ahead of time.)

After the pizza's been eaten, we crack out the games for a night of fun. The nice thing about having so many dough rounds is that more can be quickly made for game-time snacking, plus lunch the next day - which is usually a Saturday.

I'm so happy we've got this fun tradition that keeps delivering hours of creative and delicious fun, and lets us sit back, laugh and enjoy the company.

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