If a trip to Naples is not in the cards for this year, then how about bringing a little piece of Italy into your home with a delicious Italian pizza? Just follow the tips in the article below to make pizza like a true Italian and you’ll be imaging yourself in Southern Italy in no time!

1. Go the extra mile

To make a real rustic Italian pizza, you’ll need a thin and crispy base which you can then cover with all the right toppings. For the dough, all you need is about 1 kg of flour, 650 ml of warm water, 1,5 teaspoons of salt and 25 g of fresh yeast but if you want the real stuff you’ll need to make a special effort. For the flour, for example, we recommend using 00 flour as this has a very fine consistency and the salt should be sea salt to get that true Mediterranean taste.

2. Use your hands, not a rolling pin

After you’ve given your dough enough time to rise in a clean bowl, you can start forming your pie. First you’ll need to flatten the dough ball with the palm of your hand – no rolling pin allowed! – and then you can simply push the dough from the centre outwards using your fists and knuckles until you get a nice flat circle that’s no more than 4 mm thick.

3. Flavour, pure and simple

Next up is the sauce. The key here is to keep it simple and use large flavourful tomatoes to which you just add a few basic ingredients such as onion, garlic, dried oregano and extra virgin olive oil. Once it’s ready, simply pour a ladle full of sauce onto the dough and make a rotating motion to distribute the sauce evenly.

4. Stay on top of your toppings

When you’ve got your sauce in place, it’s time for the toppings. Some fresh mozzarella cheese, a few basil leaves freshly chopped with the Leo herb cutter set and a dollop of olive oil straight from your oil dispenser is all you really need. Want to add a little personal touch? You can always add some prosciutto, eggplant, artichokes or caramelized onions. Just don’t go overboard!

5. The ultimate secret

The perfect dough? Check. A delicious sauce? Check. Flavourful toppings? Check! But the real secret to making the perfect Italian pizza is using a pizza stone! When you bake your pizza at about 250°C/450°F on a pizza stone, you’ll come as close to an Italian wood burning pizza oven as you possibly can without actually installing one.