National Pizza Day: Serve up the Perfect Slice

Did you know that National Pizza Day 2023 is just around the corner? On Thursday 9^th February, it’s your chance to join in all the gooey, cheesy, crispy, delicious fun of enjoying everything pizza.

Pizza is one of the foods that most of us will agree on. Granted there are toppings and base preferences, but freshly baked pizza is a firm family favourite. And news just in, serving the perfect slice isn’t rocket science and there’s no need for a pizza oven, according to one pizza expert.

Blackmoor’s in-house pizza expert, Simon Parker shares how to quickly, easily, and cheaply convert any conventional oven to create the perfect slice.

“Having worked in the world of pizza for many years, I know how to create a good one but early on I realised as with most things, it’s about having the right equipment to create a dish that takes you to Italy and back in a bite.

“Everyone who loves pizza needs a stone, a cutter and something to serve their culinary delights on in their kitchen armoury. These can be picked up online and can be suited to all budgets, of course, Blackmoor’s 3-piece pizza set is a brilliant thrifty bundle with everything you need.

“Firstly, you must remember to preheat your stone before placing your pizza on top. If you forget to preheat, it will crack on entering the fire-like oven. The next thing is to turn up the heat. Make sure your oven is on its highest / maximum setting and then it’s a real wait-and-see game – keep a very close eye on your pizza. It may take a bit of trial and error to get the perfect pizza but when you do it feels like a real victory.”

Blackmoor’s 3-piece pizza set £22.99: https://www.blackmoorhome.co.uk/3-piece-pizza-set/

Simon likes to keep things thrifty when he creates pizzas at home by using his own dough recipe.

“My number one tip for making pizza at home, keep it simple. Here is a really basic recipe I have been following for years. It makes tasty dough that you can make in a domestic mixer with a dough hook. It makes four x 300g dough balls. Make it the day before you need it and put the dough balls in the fridge overnight in takeaway containers (surely everyone has a drawer full of these!) Then just take them out of the fridge a couple of hours before you want to cook it.”

Ingredients:

• 750g good quality pizza flour, preferably “00”
• 450g cold water
• 15g sea salt
• 4g dried yeast

 Method:

• Put the flour, yeast and about 375-400g of water into the machine bowl and mix on a fairly slow speed for a couple of minutes until the ingredients are combined. Speed the mixer up and wait until the dough starts to get stretchy, this is when you start adding the rest of the water.
• Add it in 3-4 stages with the salt and mix until the water has been completely absorbed by the dough. The total mixing time will be around 10 minutes. The dough should stretch easily.
• Allow the dough to relax for a couple of hours in the machine bowl with a cover over it.
• Cut the dough into four equal pieces and roll it into balls, put each ball in a takeaway container and put it in the fridge overnight.
• When the dough has been out of the fridge for a couple of hours, it should be at room temperature. Press the dough out with your fingers using fine semolina and put on a pizza peel.
• Top with your favourite tomato sauce, cheese, and tasty toppings.
• Now comes the tricky bit - slide onto your pre-heated pizza stone.
• The cooking time will really depend on the temperature of your oven if you have a garden pizza oven (Alfa ONE or similar) it could be as little as 90-120 seconds.
• If you are using a conventional oven, turn it up to max and allow your pizza stone to heat up with the oven (if you put a cold pizza stone in a hot oven it may crack), it will take five-six minutes.

Simon ends: “I really hope on National Pizza Day that pizza lovers across the nation get kitted up and take charge of their conventional ovens, or if they don’t feel like doing the work, they’ll turn to their local pizzeria down the road that will conveniently deliver a piping hot pizza to their door.”

With only days to go, kit yourself up with Blackmoor’s three-piece pizza set, which includes a Ceramic Pizza Stone, an Acacia Wood serving board and a Pizza Cutter.