How To Make Phamtastic Pizza
A Pizza Made By An Aspiring Web Developer
There are numerous ways to go about making pizza but out of the ones I have seen, I cannot say I have run into one written by someone who wants to be a web developer. It makes sense given in general, tutorials are written by people who feel that they know enough to teach others on their craft and I cannot say I have seen a pizza making tutorial among a playlist of web development courses. While I am definitely not a professional baker, two things I really enjoy in life are web development and pizza so I figured, why not combine the two using this webpage.
Now you may be wondering, what makes a pizza Phamtastic? For one, it is a play on words where I basically replace the “fan” in the word “fantastic” with my surname, namely “Pham”. In addition, what I consider to be Phamtastic Pizza is any pizza using my method of making it. As you will soon see, my approach has a number of different methods and items used in the actual process which you likely have not seen elsewhere (or at least I have not seen elsewhere).
With all that being said, let's take a look at how to make a Phamtastic Pizza. Enjoy!
Some Of The Things You Will Need
Below you will find some of the items you will need to make a Phamtastic Pizza.
Cooking Materials
A snapshot of some of the cooking materials you will need is provided in Figure 1.
- Kettle
- Stove (or a cooktop for boiling water with the kettle)
- Small rice bowl
- Small plate
- Teaspoons
- Soup spoon
- Tablespoon
- Large bowl
- Chopsticks (yes, you will need chopsticks!)
- Cutting board (large enough to fit your pizza)
- Cloth (large enough to cover the large bowl)
- Aluminum foil
- Fork
- Scissors
- Knife
- Rolling pin
- Cheese grater
- Pastry brush
- Toaster oven (or just use your regular oven if you have one)
- Pizza cutter
Ingredients
A snapshot of some of the ingredients you will need is provided in Figure 2.
- Yeast
- Warm Water (defined as you can dip your finger in it and not get burned)
- Sugar
- All-purpose flour
- Olive oil (vegetable oil works too but I like olive oil better)
- Salt
- Pasta sauce (I like Prego, but you can of course use any sauce you would like or simply use tomato sauce)
- A block of cheese
- Toppings (your choice of course)
Preparing The Yeast
Boil some tap water in a kettle over a stove set on high. Once the water has come to a boil, pour it into a small rice bowl about ¼ of the way full as shown in Figure 3.
Leave the water to cool down for about 8 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar into the small rice bowl and stir.
Wait for 1 minute and then add 1 ½ teaspoons of yeast into the small rice bowl. Stir the small rice bowl until the yeast dissolves as shown in Figure 4.
Cover the small rice bowl with a small plate and wait between 10 and 15 minutes checking on it every now and then. What you will notice is the yeast will rise up from inside the small rice bowl.
Remove the small plate from the top of the small rice bowl and you should notice the yeast has risen as shown in Figure 5.
Making The Dough
Add 6 soup spoons of all-purpose flour into a large bowl. Next, add 1 teaspoon of salt. Stir the contents using a pair of chopsticks.
Pour the contents of the small rice bowl from the previous section into the large bowl. Add warm water to the small rice bowl until it is full. Stir the warm water in the small rice bowl to collect the yeast which has clung to the bowl. Pour the contents into the large bowl. Add one teaspoon of olive oil into the large bowl. Mix the large bowl contents using a pair of chopsticks until the dough begins to form.
Kneading And The Dough Bounces Back
Add ¼ soup spoonful of all-purpose flour onto the cutting board and spread it out. Remove the dough from the large bowl and put the dough onto a cutting board. Knead the dough on the cutting board. To knead the dough, what you are effectively doing is folding the dough on itself and pushing on it. Below you will find a short video which demonstrates this process.
In general you will want to knead the dough for 10 minutes but a better indicator of when to stop is by poking the dough. When you poke the dough, if it bounces back then you know you have kneaded enough.
Once you have finished kneading the dough add 1 teaspoon of olive oil into the large bowl. Using your finger, spread the olive oil evenly throughout the bowl.
Place the dough into the large bowl. Cover the bowl with a large cloth.
Rising Of The Dough
Now you need to wait for the dough to rise. In the meantime, you can start preparing what will go on top of your Phamtastic Pizza.
Grating Cheese And Preparing Your Toppings
If you have not done so already, clear off the excess flour on the cutting board. Using a pair of scissors remove the packaging for a block of cheese. (You could simply use your hands but I find using scissors is easier). Take a knife and cut out ⅓ of the block of cheese. Put away the remaining ⅔ as it will not be used on the Phamtastic Pizza. Place a cheese grater on the cutting board and grate the cheese.
After you have finished grating the cheese, move it somewhere else like on a small plate. If you opted to collect the shredded cheese into a clean bag for example you do not need to move it to a small plate. You just need to ensure the shredded cheese is not on the cutting board as you will need it for the dough.
Now it is time to prepare your toppings. If you would like to follow along with what I like, place a sausage on the cutting board and slice it into thin slices using a knife. Place the resulting slices onto a small plate.
Putting It All Together
Cut out a sheet of aluminum foil and place it over your cutting board. The length of the sheet of aluminum foil should be slightly larger than the length of your pizza but not larger than the width of your oven or toaster oven.
Add a ¼ soup spoon of all-purpose flour onto the aluminum foil and spread it out as evenly as you can.
Flip the large bowl containing the risen dough onto the aluminum foil, thus removing the dough from the large bowl. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a flat circle (or in my case an oval-rectangle hybrid). Take a fork and gently poke holes throughout the dough avoiding the areas which would be where the crust is. Place a cloth over the flattened dough and wait for 10 minutes. In the meantime, add 1 teaspoon of olive oil into a small bowl.
After 10 minutes have passed, remove the cloth from the dough. Dip a pastry brush into the small bowl containing olive oil. Gently brush over what would be the pizza crust. Add 2 tablespoons of pasta sauce (or tomato sauce if you prefer) onto the dough and spread it out evenly using the tablespoon. Next, add the cheese you shredded earlier onto the sauce covered dough as evenly as you can. Finally, add your toppings (in my case it would be the sliced sausage).
Baking The Pizza
Preheat a toaster oven (or regular oven) to 375°F.
Lift the cutting board holding your Phamtastic Pizza and carefully place the Phamtastic Pizza into your oven by grabbing onto an edge of the aluminum foil and slowly pulling it forward into the oven.
Once the pizza is done, carefully remove it from the oven and place it onto a cutting board. Carefully remove the aluminum foil from the bottom of the Phamtastic Pizza.
Using a pizza cutter, cut the pizza into as many slices as you like and enjoy!
Closing Remarks
I hope your results turned out well! For reference my complete Phamtastic Pizza can be found below in Figure 7. Pizza is awesome, and it was nice getting to share my take on it from what I learned from my mother and from own experience through trial and error.
Thanks for reading and happy coding!