Among the thou­sand ways to pere­pare piz­za and the many dif­fer­ent ones I tried out over the years, this is what for me works best in a home-oven (which nor­mal­ly reach­es a tem­per­a­ture of 250°C). The most impor­tant thing is the qual­i­ty of the flour — try to find a good Ital­ian type 0 and a good semo­la.

Time: 20 min for the dough | 4–5 hour leav­en­ing time | 1 hour prepa­ra­tion and bak­ing

Spe­cial uten­sils

a piz­za peel and either a piz­za stone or a large bak­ing tray (alter­na­tive­ly alu­mini­um bak­ing trays)

Ingre­di­ents (makes 4 piz­zas)

Dough:

350 g flour type 0
150 g semo­la di gra­no duro
20 g fresh yeast
10 g salt
4 tbsp extra vir­gin olive oil
320 g luke­warm water

Top­ping:

500 g sweet cher­ry toma­toes (or a good toma­to sauce)
400 g moz­zarel­la (a good “fior di lat­te”)
Sicil­ian oregano
fresh basil
extra vir­gin olive oil
salt

1. Melt the yeast in the luke­warm water and let it rest for 10 min­utes.

2. In a bowl, mix the flour, the semo­la and the salt togeth­er, add the olive oil and the water then start to work the dough. It’s going to be a very soft and humid dough but do not add any extra flour. I like to use Richard Berthinet’s tech­nique, which is the fastest way to get an elas­tic and com­pact dough. You can watch it here.

3. When the dough is elas­tic and smooth, place it in a clean blowl and spread some semo­la on top of it. Damp­en a clean cloth and cov­er the bowl, then let it rise it in a warm place for four or five hours. I like to place it inside the oven when it’s off.

4. When you take it off it will have dou­bled in size. With the help of a scraper take the dough off the bowl and (with­out work­ing it again!) form four balls. Spread again a lit­tle semo­la on top, cov­er with a cloth and let it rest again for about one hour. At this point turn on the oven at the high­est tem­per­a­ture, so it will have one hour to warm up prop­er­ly. Inside the oven place a stone or, if you don’t have one, a large bak­ing tray upside down. This will warm up with the oven.

5. Dur­ing this one hour you can start pre­pare the top­ping. When I make a sim­ple piz­za I like using fresh cher­ry toma­toes, which I cut in half and let drain for some min­utes, a good moz­zarel­la, Sicil­ian oregano and fresh basil leaves to put on top before serv­ing. If you have a good toma­to sauce that will be great too, of course.

6. By now the hour has gone so you can start prepar­ing the dough. You can roll it out with a rolling pin or do so with your hands. I like it when it’s quite thin. Place the toma­toes or the toma­to sauce on top, the moz­zarel­la (make it into pieces with your hands), oregano, salt and olive oil.

7. Take it with the piz­za peel, quick­ly open the oven and let it slide on the stone/baking tray. Bake for 10–15 min­utes. (If you want to use bak­ing trays oil them and place the dough direct­ly on them). Spread some fresh basil leaves on top of your piz­za and serve.