It’s one of America’s most loved dishes: pizza.

The perfect combination of dough, sauce, cheese and your favorite toppings comes together to create a taste explosion. But do you know how to make it from scratch? Read on to find out how.

Make your dough

Whilst the toppings become the star of the show, the dough is arguably the most important part of pizza. Without it, the dish literally falls apart.

You will need:

35oz white bread flour

1tsp sea salt

0.5oz dried yeast (2 sachets)

1tbsp sugar

4 tbsp olive oil

A mixing bowl

A jug

Start with the white bread flour. Sieve it into a bowl and mix in the salt.

In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and oil with 22 fl oz of lukewarm water. Leave it for a few minutes. It may foam slightly, this is normal.

Mix the water, yeast, sugar and oil into the flour gradually, pulling in more of the flour each time you mix.

Knead the dough for at least 10 minutes, until it is soft and springy.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it with cling wrap and leave it to double in size. This should take about an hour.

After the proving time, take the dough out and knock the air out of it. Knead it again.

Divide the dough into enough balls to make your pizzas. This should make 6 to 8 medium pizzas.

If you are saving them for later, cover them with cling film and keep them in the fridge. Otherwise, go ahead and move onto the cooking stage.

Baking your pizzas

One of the best ways to get restaurant quality pizza at home is with a pizza stone. This allows the top of the pizza to cook whilst keeping the base of the dough crisp.

If you have one of these then first you will heat it in the oven until it is very hot. Do this by placing the stone into a cold oven and then switching the oven on to let it come up to temperature. Be very careful when moving it in and out of the oven.

Roll your pizza dough balls out to make flat rounds of dough.

Whilst the stone is warming, you can get on with the fun part – topping your pizzas!

First add your sauce, then your toppings, then your cheese. Experiment with variations on all 3 to find your favorite pizza. This is such a fun activity for a party because everyone gets to try out their own ideas.

Do not grease or oil the stone, but you can add some cornmeal to stop your pizzas from sticking. When the pizza stone is hot, add your pizza to bake. You can do this using a pizza paddle but it is not necessary if you don’t have one. Wait for your pizza to be lovely and golden before taking it out of the oven.

Let it cool slightly, slice it and dig in.

We hope you enjoy making your own pizzas at home. Let us know what your favorite toppings are in the comments!