Virtual Edition
Due to COVID-19, Pizza Friday has become a virtual event for the foreseeable future.
What does that mean?
You can join a video chat with a group of lovely people and be coached in making and baking your own pizza dough from scratch.
Or just hang out.
Whatever equipment and ingredients you have, we can make work, but we know people have questions so see below for more details.
Here's the URL for the video chat. You don't need to install any software, although there are mobile apps, if you want them. https://meet.jit.si/pizzafriday
Thursday, 5pm Melbourne time
Get online and Elle will run a version of her pizza dough workshop, talking you through making enough dough for your household.
Equipment
- scales,
- a dough/bench knife,
- a mixing bowl,
- cling wrap, and
- some smaller bowls.
Ingredients
- bread flour (or Tipo 00, or plain flour),
- a leavening agent like commercial dry yeast, or a sourdough starter,
- oil, either olive or vegetable-based, and
- salt, preferably fine or kosher.
Friday, 4pm Melbourne time
Take your dough out of the fridge.
If you have a baking stone or steel, set that on the middle rack of your oven. If you don’t, don’t worry, you can still cook pizza without one
Turn your oven on as high as it goes. Maximum temperature, fan-forced, turbo, whatever you’ve got.
Friday, 6pm Melbourne time
Jump online and learn how to stretch your pizza dough, top it, cook it, and dress it.
Then, eat!
Equipment
- oven;
- baking stone; or
- baking steel; or
- pizza tray; or
- a baking tray;
- something to slide pizza into the oven on like a peel, the back of a baking tray, or a chopping board with some baking paper;
- something to cut pizza on; and
- something to cut pizza with.
Whatever you have, we’ll make it work!
Ingredients
We divide what goes on pizza into 3 parts:
- base,
- toppings, and
- dressings.
Base
We’ll do a basic tomato sauce. You just need:
- tomatoes (tinned or fresh),
- salt, and
- olive oil.
Toppings
- a ‘dry’ cheese like Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano;
- a wet cheese: either semi-dry mozzarella (the hard stuff wrapped in plastic) or a fresh mozza in water; and
- flaky sea salt (kosher or Maldon are also fine).
Everything else is really up to what you want. Maybe something like:
- fresh mushrooms,
- fresh or confit garlic
- an oily cured meat like salami, ham etc.
Dressings
- olive oil,
- salt,
- aforementioned cheeses, and
- fresh herbs (basil / rosemary / thyme / oregano).
We can talk through all kinds of toppings but if you have this kind of stuff, you’ll be able to make something delicious.
If you want to prep ahead of time, we have a PDF you can download: Pizza Prep Guide.