How to Cook Thin Crust Pizza
Makes: 1 standard size pizza
Ingredients needed to make thin crust pizza:
For the pizza crust:
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ¾ cup warm water
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp yeast
- ¾ tsp salt
For the topping:
- 1/3 cup tomato sauce
- 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
- 8 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- ½ green or red bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 3 tbsp fresh basil leaves, finely sliced
- 3 tbsp olive oil
Cooking instructions for thin crust pizza:
- To make the pizza dough, add yeast to a cup of warm water and give it a nice stir; set aside for about 5-10 minutes or until the yeast becomes active.
- Stir a dash of salt into the flour and pour the active yeast mixture on it.
- Drizzle some olive oil over the flour and process them with a electric mixer for about 5 minutes at low speed, until they form a soft, pliable dough. In case, the dough appears too sticky, dust some flour over it and if it tends to become too dry, add few tbsp of water.
- Wrap it up in a towel and set aside in a warm place for an hour or two to let it rise.
- Warm up your oven to 450 degrees F and lightly oil a pizza pan or flat baking dish with olive oil.
- Dust your working counter with flour and place the pizza dough on it.
- Dust it with some more flour and roll it into a thin circle, about the size of your pizza pan.
- Fold it into half twice and place it on the pan.
- Unfold and spread the dough over the pan while trimming off the extra dough hanging out of it.
- Pour the tomato sauce over it and spread it throughout the dough.
- Stir the garlic into the olive oil and drizzle it on top of the tomato sauce.
- Arrange the bell pepper slices over the pizza, followed by sliced mozzarella.
- Top it up with the Parmesan cheese and place the pizza into the oven.
- Bake the pizza at the preheated temperature for about 18-20 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown and the cheese melts.
- Remove the pizza from the oven and sprinkle the sliced basil leaves on top of it.
- Slice the pizza with a pizza cutter and serve.
- You can experiment with the pizza toppings according to your preference. If you are a meat lover, then feel free to add chicken or sausage dices and bacon too to spike up its flavour.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
