What are the colors of pizza margherita? 🔴 for the tomato sauce, ⚪ for the mozzarella, and 🟢 for the basil leaves. Does this ring a bell??? Yes, they are the colors of the Italian flag! 🇮🇹 Here's the story ...

Why pizza margherita was 'invented'. From 1861 to 1946, Italy was a kingdom, the Kingdom of Italy. One day in 1889 King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples and they asked to taste an assortment of pizzas. Raffaele Esposito was the best pizzaiolo there and he prepared 3 classic pizzas for them: 1) with lard, cheese, and basil; 2) with tomato, garlic, olive oil, and oregano; 3) with tomato, olive oil, mozzarella, and basil. This last pizza with the colors of the Italian flag was the Queen's favorite so Raffaele Esposito named it Pizza Margherita in her honor!

When we went to Naples, we went to that exact restaurant where the Queen of Italy had her Pizza Margherita.

To make pizza margherita, use the basic pizza dough and cut out the dough into smaller portions of 250 g (8.8 oz) if you want to make round pizza or into larger portions if you want to make pizza on a baking tray.

The amount of dough. Here you need a scale! If you want to prepare round pizzas, divide the dough into portions of 250 g (8.8 oz) each. If you want to prepare the pizza in a medium-sized pan (about 30 x 40 cm / 11.8 x 15.7 in), divide the dough into portions of about 600 g (21.2 oz). In Italy, we use a specific formula to calculate the amount of dough needed for a baking pan (square or rectangular). The formula can only be used with centimeters and grams and it's Base x Height / 2. First multiply the base by the height of the pan (ex. 30 cm x 40 cm = 1200). Then divide the result by 2 (1200 / 2 = 600 g). So for a 30 cm x 40 cm baking pan you need 600 g of dough.

Then stretch the dough and put the ingredients on top.

Tip. It's best to use low-moisture mozzarella so that it doesn't release excess water on the pizza. If possible, choose pelati which are canned peeled tomatoes for the sauce. Break them up with your hands so you get chunky parts of tomato on your pizza. This is how they do it in Naples! 😉