Pizza! A great start of your holidays in an apartment in Umbria

Read in this article what pizza and vacation in an apartment in Umbria have to do with each other.
As a large Italian family eating together at a long table is a dream for everyone. We make that dream come true!

As long as we have apartments in Polmone, we have been baking pizza in the original wood oven of the Polmone farmhouse for so long. And that has been around for a long time! The first time was in the summer of 1991 when we were still sort of 'camping' in the no longer total landfall Polmone. After all, we had already renewed the roof and realized the first apartment the year before. That was Simpatica, the vacation apartment for 2 people.

Even the original wood oven of the farm had already been restored. The whole original oven had collapsed with a light earthquake in Umbria.

The first pizzas

I still remember well that we were in Polmone for 3 weeks in our beloved Umbria with friends from the Netherlands who came to help us with all the restoration work.

We were able to complete the Biblioteca apartment for 5 people during that holiday. Nico's 2 children were also there and we had a horse walking around the house of a friendly Italian.
For the first time we were going to bake pizza. Cozy together at the pizza oven. A nice start to our holiday in Umbria in the first apartment that was finished! We also asked some Italian acquaintances to come. After all, the more souls, the more joy.

Enigmatic behavior

We started enthusiastically with preparing the dough and cutting the ingredients for the pizza, a large 5 liter bottle of white wine! Awesome! And in the meantime the first pizzas went into the oven. They tasted delicious and really different from the oven at home, because these pizzas also had a wonderful smoky taste because they came from our wood oven.

To our great surprise, however, our Italian acquaintances pushed more than half of the ingredients off their pizza and puffed up the in our eyes bald pizza with a lot of taste. At first we thought that they might not all like mushrooms. But the pizza afterwards they all didn't like tuna either! That was a bit puzzling.

Lesson 1

In my best Italian I asked if they sometimes didn't like the tuna.
Yes, they answered in unison, but there is way too much for it! That way you no longer taste what you eat. You throw all kinds of flavors together on the pizza!
Besides the tuna there was also onion, zucchini and pepper on it!
Of course we applied their advice immediately and it is really true what they said then! The pizzas afterwards were much tastier.

And if you look around you here with us in Umbria when you are going to eat pizza, then you will also notice that they do less stuffing on the pizza here than in the Netherlands.

Eating pizza and vacation in an apartment in Umbria

Years after our first pizza baking lesson and many pizzas later we went on a good day to bake pizzas with our guests. We still did and do this once a week if there are enough guests.

After all, eating pizza and vacation in an apartment with us on Polmone in Umbria just belong together! We have noticed that it is a very pleasant and relaxing activity to introduce everyone who is at Polmone in this way. So that afterwards it is a lot easier to meet each other and not immediately think that you will disturb your neighbors when you walk past them.

Lesson 2

This time another Italian ate with us who was helping us with all kinds of odd jobs on Polmone. And after a great afternoon with friendly guests and delicious pizzas, we retired to our own apartment. Our own house wasn't ready yet and we didn't even live here in Umbria! Knock Knock! Our Italian help was at the door. Well, he said, I would like to tell you something about how you bake pizzas. Why don't you actually bake the pizzas directly on the stone bottom of the wood oven? Because otherwise too much ash is on the pizzas, we answered. I understand that, he said again. But because you bake the pizzas on a baking tin, they won't get as crispy as they would if you bake them directly on the bottom of the oven. Of course he was absolutely right about that!
But how the hell do you get the bottom of the wood oven ash-free? And how do you put the pizza in the oven?

We clearly needed a set of pizza aids. This includes a large shovel to put the pizza on the shelves and in the oven, a shovel to push the wood aside and an iron broom to sweep the oven clean.
Since this 2nd lesson we have always baked our pizzas directly on the bottom of our Umbrian wood oven and are praised for our fantastic pizza bases!

What does pizza have to do with holidays in an apartment in Umbria?

Everything! We have been living in our beloved Umbria for 20 years now and we have made a huge number of guests (and ourselves!) Happy with the weekly pizza-baking afternoon or evening. After all these years we still enjoy doing it. It creates a nice, relaxed atmosphere on Polmone. Nobody needs to do anything with each other, but it is still nice if you meet each other in a relaxed atmosphere.

Moreover, it always has the effect that everyone feels they can just be themselves. Guests who regularly return to us will not find their holiday complete even if we have not baked a pizza!
And the funny thing is that there have been a lot of people who don't like pizza at all. But everyone likes Polmone's pizza!

Pizza recipe

And of course a lot of guests have asked us for the pizza recipe in recent years. But we have always done something all these years!
I can share with you how we are doing.
We use white 00 flour. 00 says something about the hardness of the wheat. As a measuring unit we use approximately 1 kg of flour for 4 people, but this is on the large side.
You also need about 10 g of yeast per kg of flour.
If you are going to knead you have to prepare enough lukewarm water in which you dissolve the yeast, salt and olive oil.

Now pour all the flour onto your countertop like a heap. Make a hole in the middle with your fist and slowly pour in the water with the yeast. Mix it well with the flour and always add something until you have mixed it with the flour again. Also add a dash of oil and knead into a firm dough. At the end you add some salt as needed and you knead well.

The dough may no longer stick to your hands and must feel like the skin of a baby. Then it is ready and you put a tea towel over it and let it rise until it is twice as large.

Make pizza

Now you can start the real thing! It is important to have at least mozzarella and a tomato sauce. We always make tomato sauce from passata and add a little salt, oregano, basil, pepper and garlic to it. We always cut the mozzarella into small cubes so that you can divide it well over the pizza. For the rest you have to see for yourself what you like on the pizza. But keep an eye on lesson 1!

Sprinkle some flour on your work surface. The easiest way is to cut a piece off the dough ball and press it a little flat into the flour on your work surface. We then roll it out with a rolling pin into a round piece. Then we sprinkle flour on top and then turn it over so that there is enough flour under the pizza. If you do not, it will be difficult to get it off your work surface and put it in the oven.
Now you can start with a pizza margherita. First put some tomato sauce on it and spread it out with a spoon on the dough sheet. Not too much because then you get a weak bottom! Then you put mozzarella on it and it can be put in the oven. Only when it comes out of the oven is done, you put fresh basil on it and you can cut it into pieces and serve.
We wish you a lot of pleasure with your own pizzas! And let us know below if it worked and which varieties you made!

Holiday in an apartment in Umbria

Have you become curious about how that famous Polmone pizza tastes? And do you want to know more about a holiday in an apartment with us in Umbria? Then take a look around this site or just send us a message. Then we will look together if an apartment is available for you.
But of course you can also see for yourself by filling in the period below when you would like to come.