Name: Sheet pan pizza
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Total time: 18 h
Yield: 1 tray (8 slices)
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: ⅓ or ½ of the dough from homemade bread, made with type 00 flour or semola instead of type 650 — 570 g for a thin base, 860 g for a thick, pillowy one; 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, added during kneading; salt — 1% of the sauce weight; 100 ml water; 500 g tomato passata (the best you can find); 2 tbsp tomato purée; 1 tsp sugar; ½ bunch of fresh basil; salt — an even scattering over the whole surface; 150 g jarred artichokes, well drained and cut however you like — I cut them into strips; 1 red bell pepper, cut into julienne; 150 g plant-based chorizo, thinly sliced; 150 g mushrooms, thinly sliced; 50 g black olives, pitted — optional; Kalamata are the best, but use whatever you have; 100 g sweetcorn, drained — optional; freshly ground black pepper — generously, a layer you can see; dried oregano — optional, ½ tsp; 150 g grated cheese — original: mozzarella / vegan: the best melting plant-based cheese you have (soy or cashew); 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

About this recipe

The same pizza, made in an oven tray, using the dough from homemade bread with two extra tablespoons of olive oil. The long cold fermentation makes all the difference: the dough has flavour, it lets itself be stretched, and it bakes up with an open crumb and a base with real texture.

Two rules you don't break. The dough is stretched by hand only — a rolling pin has no business here. And the edge doesn't get ignored: it's roughly a quarter of the pizza, so it gets sauce like everything else.

Method

1. The dough — the day before (3 hours of work + overnight in the fridge)

Make the dough exactly as in homemade bread: knead for 10 minutes, rest for an hour, add the salt and knead a further 5 minutes, then 4 stretch and fold cycles every 30 minutes and at least overnight in the fridge.

Two differences from the bread recipe: change the flour — type 00 or semola (finely milled durum wheat) instead of type 650 — and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil at the start, along with the water.

The full recipe, with 1 kg of flour, gives you close to 1.7 kg of dough. One tray takes ⅓ or ½ of it.

2. Portion, shape and bring to room temperature (2 hours)

Turn the dough out of the fridge onto a well-floured counter and cut the portion for your tray: ⅓ for a thin base, ½ for a thick, pillowy one. The rest goes straight back into the cold.

Shape the portion into a ball or a rectangle, depending on the shape of your tray. Don't knead it again — just tuck it gently underneath so the surface takes on some tension.

Cover with a large upturned bowl or a clean, damp tea towel and leave 1-2 hours at room temperature. Cold dough tears when stretched; relaxed dough stretches itself.

3. The tomato sauce (1 hour)

Put the passata, tomato purée and water in a saucepan. Add the salt, sugar and basil.

Simmer over low heat, uncovered, for up to an hour, until almost all the water has evaporated and the sauce has tightened. The sugar isn't there for sweetness — it concentrates the tomato flavour. Taste at the end and take it off the heat.

Passata, not purée: the passata is the base, the tomato purée only reinforces it. Purée alone comes out heavy and metallic.

4. Stretch the dough — hands only (5 min)

No rolling pin. A rolling pin crushes the air bubbles the dough spent 12 hours in the fridge building.

Lift the dough into the air and grab it by the edges, moving your hands around the circumference like a steering wheel. Let it hang — gravity does all the work, you just hold it and turn it. Pull gently outwards, not down.

As few touches as possible. Every palm placed in the middle of the dough deflates exactly the part that needs to stay open.

5. Fit it into the tray (5 min)

Oil the tray well, sides included. Lay the stretched dough in and push it out with your fingertips, from the centre towards the corners, until it covers the whole base and climbs a little up the sides.

If it springs back and refuses to reach the corners, cover it and leave it 10 minutes, then come back. Don't force it — it tears.

Heat the oven to 250°C with no fan.

6. Sauce and vegetables (10 min)

Spread the tomato sauce generously with the back of a spoon, working from the centre outwards. Take it over the edges — the rim is about a quarter of the pizza and there's no reason to leave it bare.

Over the sauce, an even layer of julienned pepper covering the tomato base completely. Then the chorizo slices, and over those the artichokes and mushrooms. Olives and sweetcorn last, if you're using them.

Season at the end, straight over the vegetables: an even scattering of salt, plenty of freshly ground black pepper — enough that you can see the layer — and dried oregano if you like it.

The cheese does not go on yet.

Pepper before the oven, not after: those 20 minutes at 250°C open up its aroma and tie it into the oil and the sauce. Scattered over a pizza that's already out, it just sits on top as dust.

7. Bake (20 min)

Put the tray into the fully heated oven on the middle shelf and bake at least 20 minutes at 250°C with no fan. The rim should be well browned and the base dry and firm when you lift it with a spatula.

8. Add the cheese (5-10 min)

Pull the tray out, scatter the cheese evenly and return it to the oven for a further 5-10 minutes, until it melts and picks up browned patches here and there.

Why the cheese goes on late: 30 minutes at 250°C burns it and turns it rubbery, and the rendered fat soaks the sauce. The last few minutes are all it needs.

9. Rest and slice (5 min)

Move the pizza onto a wire rack and leave it 5 minutes. Sliced straight away, the sauce runs and the base seems soft. Five minutes and everything settles.

Cut into 8 slices, in the tray or on a board, with a large knife or a wheel cutter.

Notes & Tips

Why never a rolling pin

Long cold fermentation builds a network of air bubbles distributed through the whole dough. A rolling pin bursts them and pushes them out, evenly and irreversibly. The result is a dense base with a tight crumb — the exact opposite of what you waited 12 hours for. Hands stretch without pressing: gravity pulls the sheet from the inside outwards and the bubbles elongate instead of popping.

The edge is a quarter of the pizza

In a 40×30 cm tray, the 3-4 cm band around the rim is nearly 25% of the surface. Left bare, it comes out as plain bread sitting next to the good slice. Take the sauce all the way and over the lip — it caramelises against the oiled sides of the tray and turns into the best part.

How far to reduce the sauce

You're after a sauce that sits on the spoon without running. Water left in the sauce evaporates in the oven and passes through the dough, and the base comes out soft in the middle. An hour of uncovered simmering over low heat is almost always enough — but go by consistency, not by the clock.

The tray

A dark metal tray conducts heat better and gives a base with texture. Thin, shiny trays reflect heat and leave the middle pale. No baking paper — oil straight onto metal is what fries the base.

Plant-based cheese

This is worth spending on — it's the last layer, you taste it directly and it has nowhere to hide. Plant-based cheeses melt differently from one type to the next: starch-based ones form a glossy crust and stretch, cashew-based ones stay creamier and brown less. If yours won't take on colour, brush it with a little olive oil before the final minutes.

The flour — 00 or semola

Type 00 is very finely milled and gives an extensible dough that lets itself be stretched by hand without springing back — exactly what you want when gravity is doing the work. Semola, finely milled durum wheat, gives a base with more texture, a warmer colour and a faint nuttiness. Half and half is the most balanced: extensibility from the 00, a firm base from the semola.

Semola absorbs more water than ordinary white flour. If the dough feels firm after the 10 minutes of kneading, add water a tablespoon at a time until it comes back to the soft, sticky texture of the bread recipe.

⅓ or ½ — how to choose

⅓ of the dough (about 570 g) gives a thin base, with less crumb and a lower rim — good when you want the sauce and vegetables to be the point. ½ (about 860 g) gives a thick, pillowy base with a tall rim, closer to a neighbourhood pan pizza. The same amount of sauce covers either.

What to do with the rest of the dough

Whatever is left keeps covered in the fridge for another day or two with no trouble — it actually improves. Bake it as a second pizza, portion and shape it as sandwich loaves, or stretch it thin, brush it with oil and salt and give it 10 minutes at 250°C.