Create your own delicious pizzas at home with the help of Aberdeenshire’s Mikes Pizza Gaff

To-date, my family and I – out of the five of us – have experienced three lockdown birthdays.

And with things going the way they are, I’m already planning ahead and thinking of the best ways to celebrate a milestone birthday of mine, my 21st, at home later this year.

But despite being confined within four walls, it’s important to make the occasions memorable – whether that involves adorning your interiors with birthday decor, organising activities to do at home throughout the day, hosting a virtual quiz, or ordering a slap-up takeaway.

Something that’s really big in my family is ensuring the birthday-ee requests their favourite meal for us to enjoy together later in the day. But for my dad, we decided to extend this over three nights this time around. He can’t say we aren’t good to him.

While night one – his actual birthday – was our highly anticipated steak night, it was night two that I was looking forward to above all. Yes, steaks are a treat, but an evening spent making your own pizzas and enjoying them afterwards, has always been something I’ve enjoyed.

Having read fantastic feedback that Mikes Pizza Gaff (MPG) could not make this process any easier, I placed an order online to pick up two of the business’s pizza making kits at its premises in Newburgh – everything was fitting together perfectly.

After completing the payment process online, all I had to do was collect my delicious package.

I opted for the Napoli Kit – containing two balls of Napoli dough, a tub of MPG sauce, one portion of mozzarella, and a pack of Napoli/Milano salami – and a Roman Kit, which featured two balls of Roman dough, a tub of MPG sauce, one portion of provolone picante, and a pack of copocollo (a traditional Italian and Corsican pork). At £12 per pack, I considered it a steal.

Making The Pizzas

• Step 1: Unboxing

First thing’s first, it’s important to highlight that each kit includes a ‘guide’ inside. This is a card that explains exactly what to do to achieve pizzas that are appealing to the eye and to taste.

I was rather apprehensive about how short the guide was. However, it directs you to the MPG website to read further instructions. These cannot be more helpful.

You’re advised to move your dough from the freezer to the fridge at least one day before cooking. However, if you’re like me and didn’t have the time to fit this in, you can also pop it into a bowl (within its wrapping) and leave it at room temperature for around three-to-four hours. Now that was a sigh of relief. I took one dough ball out of each kit and got straight to work.

• Step 2: Proving the dough

Once the dough has defrosted and is slightly risen, you can remove it from its wrapping and place it onto a lightly floured surface.

From here, all that’s required is turning it back into a ball using your hands alone – curling it from front to back (top to bottom) with a crease at the base – followed by sprinkling a tad more flour over it and placing into a tub or deep-based pan and covering with cling film. Leave at room temperature (18-20C) for at least 20 minutes.

• Step 4: Preheat oven

At this point, it’s crucial to preheat your oven and ensure a pizza stone or pizza cooking tray is left inside to heat up. Your electric or gas oven should be set at the highest temperature to achieve the best results and guarantee a crispy outside and light and fluffy inside.

• Step 3: Preparing the toppings

While leaving my dough to rise slightly for 30 minutes, I shifted my focus onto toppings.

I started out with the Napoli kit and chopped up the portion of mozzarella into thin slices, along with the Napoli/Milano salami. And I then did the same for the Roman kit, making sure to cut the provolone picante and copocollo. Between you and I, I did sample each of the ingredients before placing them on my pizzas – and they were divine.

With everything prepared, you can then move back to the dough.

• Step 4: Rolling your dough

Both of my doughs had to be rolled out differently, so make sure to follow this step.

For the Napoli dough, flour your surface and, using your fingertips, press down on the centre of the dough (not the edges) pushing outwards. This will create a light and fluffy crust. To stretch the dough out further, try picking it up by holding on to the edges with both hands and slowly rotate the base using gravity to stretch.

For the Roman dough, flour your surface and, using a rolling pin, roll out your dough from the centre outwards in all directions including the edges. Roll until your base is around 10-12 inches in diameter and an even thickness all around.

• Step 5: Toppings

My favourite part of the pizza making process is adding the toppings. Still following the MPG website instructions, I put a dollop of the MPG tomato sauce onto the centre of my Napoli pizza and, using the back of a spoon, spread in a circular motion moving it from the centre of the dough out to around 10mm away from the edge.

For my Roman pizza, I did the same but left a 5mm gap away from the edge rather than a 10mm gap.

I then placed my toppings – including the cheeses and meats – onto the pizzas, making sure I topped the doughs with the correct items. Remember to spread them evenly to avoid the ingredients clumping together in the middle during the cooking process.

Now you can place your pizzas into the oven. This was a tad tricky for me as, unfortunately, I don’t have a pizza peel. So try your best to do what you can with a floured chopping board or flat serving board.

• Step 6: Cook

All that’s left to do now is cook the pizzas – this is a part each of us loved. We couldn’t contain our excitement and continued to observe the pizzas while cooking.

They only needed around 10 minutes, then were ready to enjoy.

The Verdict 

Regardless of your age or cooking abilities, you’ll be able to follow the instructions to create Mikes Pizza Gaff’s pizza making kits with ease.

Not only are they great fun to prepare, but they taste incredible too – and that’s coming from someone who’s tried a lot of pizzas in their time, and I mean a lot.

The ingredients were fresh and delicious, particularly the Napoli/Milano salami. But both doughs were the stars of the show in my eyes. Just as Mike promises on his website, if you follow the instructions correctly, they’re crispy and crunchy and outside and fluffy on the inside.

All in all, my family were absolutely delighted with the end results. And although some of them didn’t have the patience to help with the pizza making process, the products were a hit.

Price: £24

Address: Newburgh, AB41 6BG

The Napoli kits and Roman kits cost £12 per pack. Each pack includes enough ingredients to create two pizzas.

Mikes Pizza Gaff offers a delivery service within a 15-mile radius of Newburgh, as well as a collection service, during weekday evenings.

To place an order or find out more information, visit mikespizzagaff.co.uk