Pizza recipe - one that finally worked for someone who always manages to fail

So, I’ve always found it a challenge but finally found something which works.

It’s a recipe on YouTube by an Italian grandma. I thought, if I follow her step by step, surely I can’t fail. (Italy, pizza connection).

The basic ingredients for dough are the same as most recipes except there is no sugar. I always heard sugar is important for yeast. And it does help with proofing the dough. But I think the sugar causes the dough to retain a lot of moisture from the sauce and cheese. Uncooked dough was always an issue of mine.

Anyways it’s just bog standard; leave salt in hot water along with dry yeast for a few minutes. Then mix with flour (I use 00 grade). Just use a suitable ratio once you decide on how much flour you want/how many pizzas.

I also found how to make super nice sauce. The sauce quality turns it from an ordinary pizza to a very special pizza for me personally.

Again, just stumbled across stuff (I spent many hours watching pizza stuff when I was sick and stuck in bed recently). Just a can or two of crushed tomatoes. 2-3 heaped tbs butter (very important), 2-3 garlic cloves whole (scoop out at end), tsp salt, half tsp sugar (you should adjust salt and sugar at end after a quick taste test). And some herbs if you like and simmer for 40-60 minutes like a day before making. It depends if you don’t mind tiny chunks of tomato in your sauce (which I don’t), so you can simmer for 20-30 minutes. You can also add a few tbs of tomato purée if you like.

Anyways, the lady heated it for 30 minutes cause it was huge. I just left it for ~8 minutes without cheese (just dough and sauce) and ~5 minutes with cheese. I tried to cook the dough prior to adding sauce and cheese in the past but it didn’t help, so I put the whole thing down to the sugar.

If you want to watch the video you can probably find it by just searching for old Italian grandma makes pizza or something, it’s an old video I believe

But the thing she did was exclude sugar and I think that’s what helped, so maybe just try your recipe without sugar. IF you kept failing, like I did... many times.

Anyways, the sauce is super good. I use it for everything like pasta etc. I tried a bunch of fancy recipes from fancy sites for tomato sauce over the years and none really seemed worth the effort.

I’m sure there will be people who make super amazing pizza with adding sugar to the flour and this won’t resonate with them. But it worked for me.

Edit: I haven’t added a precise recipe and times. But maybe just use a random recipe instructions and exclude sugar. In case you aren’t familiar with pizza making e.g. I excluded mentioning you proof it for an hour or so, at least.

bon appetit