We so much wanted your first recipe to be on bread and pizza dough! As you already know, we are Italian, so we hope you’ll excuse any mistake we make on a syntax or grammal level. But we are sure that our recipe is just right, this is what this article is about and we won’t make any mistake on that 🙂

Our recipe comes from experience. Experience includes a simple fact: you don’t have all the time in the world to bake our own bread or make your home made pizza, at least not everyday.

Since we’ve “perfected” this recipe, we haven’t been to the bakery anymore (not to buy bread, anyway). Our recipe for home made bread and pizza is fast and incredibly versatile.

Infact, with only one type of dough you can end up with:

• 1,6 Kg of home made bread (enough for 2 days for a family of 4)
• Pizza bread (you can stuff it or simply slice it – it’s delicious and you can use it instead of bread)
• Red pizzette (small pizzas with tomato sauce)
• Fried pizza bread (they look like little round panini, but they are so much better in taste, and you can stuff it!)

There are 4 things that you need: the right ingredients, the right tools, some rising time and the time to bake your dough. We suggest that – due to the long rising time, you prepare your dough in the morning: we’ll show you how fast it is!

The faster dough preparation (ever)

These are the only ingredients that you need for the dough:

• 1 Kg flour
• Fresh yeast (1 cube) or dried yeast (about 15 gr)
• 50 ml olive oil
• 550 ml water
• 2 teaspoons of salt

Note: if you use fresh yeast, disolve it into a glass with 1 tablespoon of sugar before pouring it in the mix. Fresh yeast is good only if you use it really… fresh. If it’s been sitting in your fridge for many days, then it’s not good anymore.

As for the tools, well, if you do it by hand not only it will take you ages, but the results won’t be as good as with a planetary mixer. Not only that: it’s really hard to have the time to work your dough by hand everyday…

So, yes, get a planetary mixer. It’s definitely a good investment if you want to start (and continue) to bake your bread and pizzas at home.

We have the Artisan by Kitchen Aid. We know it’s probably one of the top planetary mixer around and it’s a bit more expensive than others, but it’s worth every dollar, that’s for sure.

Pour all the ingredients directly into the mixer bowl: flour, yeast, salt, olive oil and water. Gently stir it with a spoon to start mixing the ingredients. Then turn the planetary mixer on, with the dough hook, at low speed. With the Kitchen Aid, we leave it on for about 10 minutes, always at low speed.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and cover it with a cloth, then put in a place with a stable temperature. I usually put it in the oven (dont turn it on!!). Rising time can be between 2 to even 7 hours. The more, the better, but it depends on how you can organize yourself. You can even bake it after about 2 hours.

How to bake bread easily

Take the dough out of the bowl and then quickly reshuffle it with your hands (and the aid of some flour, if it’s too sticky). Divide the dough into 2 halves.

Put each half into two loaf baking pans lined with baking paper (stailess steel or ceramic, up to you).

Brush the surface with a bit of olive oil and, if you prefer, add a little salt on top. Then, with a table knife, make three/four diagonal cuts on the top of the dough. You don’t have to cut the dough too deeply, though.

Put a oven pan filled with water at the bottom of the oven. Then pre-heat the oven at 180° (ventilated). Then put your bread in the oven, on the lower tray.

Cooking time may depend on a number of factors, but it’s usually about between 50 minutes and 1 hour, maybe a bit less. Also, it depends on how crusty you want your bread to be 🙂

After about 30 minutes, take the bread out of the oven and remove the baking pans and the baking paper. Then, put the bread back into the oven, on the mid tray.

At one point, you’ll smell the aroma of fresh made bread: make sure you don’t over cook it!

Wait (if you can resist!) about 2 hours before slicing it. Keep the loafs in two separate cloths. The bread it’s even better the next day!

As with all new things, you’ll probably need to organize yourself with the right timing and tools. One suggestion: wash all tools right after you’ve used it as dry dough is a bit hard to remove.

How to make pizza bread (with the same dough)

Yes, you can use the same dough to prepare a delicious pizza bread! Once you’ve prepared your dough, strech it with your hands on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Then quickly press your fingertips on all the surface.

Pour some olive oil on the pizza and then brush it to make it even. Add generous rock salt. Before you put it in the oven, it should look someting like the picture below.

Pre heat the oven at about 220° and bake it for about 20/25/30 minutes. Keep an eye on it, as cooking time may vary. When it’s ready, you can cut it into slices. It should be thick enough to allow you to stuff it. You can keep what’s left (not much usually…) in the freezer. It’s perfect for a fast snack!

The right kitchen tools

For your convenience, we’ve added some products below that you may look at, from the planetary mixer to the smaller tools like the oil brush. If you click on the image, you’ll be redirected to the Amazon page where you’ll be able to check all the products’ features.

 

 

We hope you’ll try this recipes! Please feel free to leave us a message or comment below if you want further details about this recipe. Also, if you try it, please send us a pic: we want to see your bread! Actually, we wish we could taste it, too 🙂