Check out our
Top 5 Pizza Braai Tips!
Pizza Tips
1. Perfect Pizza Base
- When making homemade pizza bases, par-bake them for easier handling. Make extra bases that you can freeze for later use. This will make your next pizza night much easier.
- For homemade bases we can recommend Eureka Mills Pizza Base Easy home mix. Just add oil and water.
- When buying premade pizza bases, keep in mind that the thicker the base the longer the cooking time.
- Most pizza lovers prefer a thinner base but remember that you can make a base too thin and this will result in your pizza being “floppy”
Get saucy!
2. Tasty Tomato Base
- When spreading you base, leave about 1cm open from the edges of your pizza. This will ensure that your pizza gets that crispy crust and, also help with your pizza not being “floppy”.
- Don’t put on too much sauce as this will make you pizza soggy and result in your pizza toppings sliding off.
- When making your tomato base, make some extra and freeze them in smaller containers for your next pizza night.
Tasty Flavours
3. Tip Top Toppings
- The Golden Rule – Less is more! 3-4 toppings max.
- Don’t overload your pizza with a pile of toppings. This will result in your pizza being soggy and your cooking time will increase.
- When using raw meat and vegetables topping, like steak, chicken, bacon, mushrooms peppers etc., pre-cooking them will reduce the cooking time of your pizza and lower the amount of moisture in your pizza as well. This will result in a crispier pizza overall.
- Onions should be pan sautéed with a little olive oil until soft and caramelized before putting on top of a pizza. Raw onions contain a lot of moisture and will not cook evenly if baked on top of your pizza base. One exception is red onion which can be sliced very thin and placed raw on the pizza.
- For an easy way to partially cook your toppings, throw them in an oven proof pan or dish and pop them in the drawer of your Pizza Braai for 1-2 minutes. Obviously, your Pizza Braai needs to be hot.
Say Cheese!
4. Cheese Toppings
- Medium Fat Mozzarella cheese is your general favourite and go-to cheese when making pizza.
- Adding feta also brings out extra flavour.
- We recommend that 25% of the cheese on your pizza be feta.
- Using freshly grated cheese will give you the best texture and flavour.
- Pre-grated frozen cheese normally lacks moisture and generally have less flavour and lacks texture.
- Don’t use processed cheese on your pizza as it tends to burn easily.
- Do not use only cheddar as it contains a lot of oil which can make your pizza greasy.
DIY
5. Homemade Pizza Base
Make 8 medium (85g) or 4 large (170g) Pizza Bases
Ingredients
- 500g White Bread flour
- 1(10g) Packet of yeast
- 1 tsp Salt
- 2 ½ tsp Sugar
- 250 ml Lukewarm water
- 60 ml Olive Oil
Instructions
- Mix all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl
Add the water & olive oil - Mix together and knee dough well
- Let it rest to rise for at least 5 min
- Roll out into desired size and thickness
- Pierce rolled out dough with fork to avoid air bubbles in pizza base when baking
Bake
- Bake for 5 min @ 180°C in your home oven
Or - 60 – 90 seconds in your hot Pizza Braai.
Tip
Double or triple up this recipe and freeze the bases that are left over. This will make your next pizza night super easy.
Enjoy!