Pizza night last night. We don't have a regular pizza night, but we should! It was delicious and the dough is darn easy. Speaking of dough, I use a recipe for this pizza that calls for only a 30 minute rise period and it's good. Certainly not the best, but good. I did do one thing differently last night. I wanted to try to make the dough a honey-wheat version, instead of all white flour. It worked really well, I think I got a good combo of ingredients down. Let continue...
Here's the starter for the dough. Yeast, warm water, and something sweet. The recipe calls for sugar, I used 2 teaspoons of honey. Let that sit for a minute or two, then you can start to add the other ingredients, including 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Then add your flour and salt. I substituted in a half of a cup of whole wheat flour, with the white flour. I found this combination just right, for me, of whole wheat nutty flavor and still a good texture for kneading. The recipe is in this post for Deep Dish Pizza.
Once the dough pulls together, I give it a little coating of olive oil, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes.
Divide the dough in half and start to roll out. I can't twirl my dough, so I actually roll it out with a pin. I was able to get this dough down nice and thin. I folded it up and transferred it to a sheet of parchment paper. Thought that would be a good idea, but not! To bake the pizza properly, you'll want to put it on a pizza stone in a 500 degree oven. Parchment paper isn't designed to be used a temperatures that high. Although it didn't bust into flames, I certainly charred up and got very crispy! So, lesson learned, roll out the dough, then transfer to a cornmeal lined baking sheet for easy transfer to the oven and baking stone. Note to self: I need to clean my baking stone, there is some dough that is completely baked on.
Start topping your pizza. In this instance, we did the BBQ Chicken Pizza we did a few weeks ago that was a huge hit. The sauce is BBQ sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese, then pieces of cooked, bbq'ed chicken. Tomatoes and red onions. Give a sprinkle of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Bake in a 500 degree oven for 12-17 minutes--depending on how thin your crust is. The last time, the dough wasn't as thing and it took longer. Last night, the crust was thinner and only took about 12-15 minutes.
Let the pizza rest for a minute on your cutting board, slice it and sprinkle with fresh chopped cilantro. Very tasty!
Here's the starter for the dough. Yeast, warm water, and something sweet. The recipe calls for sugar, I used 2 teaspoons of honey. Let that sit for a minute or two, then you can start to add the other ingredients, including 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Then add your flour and salt. I substituted in a half of a cup of whole wheat flour, with the white flour. I found this combination just right, for me, of whole wheat nutty flavor and still a good texture for kneading. The recipe is in this post for Deep Dish Pizza. 
Once the dough pulls together, I give it a little coating of olive oil, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes. 
Divide the dough in half and start to roll out. I can't twirl my dough, so I actually roll it out with a pin. I was able to get this dough down nice and thin. I folded it up and transferred it to a sheet of parchment paper. Thought that would be a good idea, but not! To bake the pizza properly, you'll want to put it on a pizza stone in a 500 degree oven. Parchment paper isn't designed to be used a temperatures that high. Although it didn't bust into flames, I certainly charred up and got very crispy! So, lesson learned, roll out the dough, then transfer to a cornmeal lined baking sheet for easy transfer to the oven and baking stone. Note to self: I need to clean my baking stone, there is some dough that is completely baked on.
Start topping your pizza. In this instance, we did the BBQ Chicken Pizza we did a few weeks ago that was a huge hit. The sauce is BBQ sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese, then pieces of cooked, bbq'ed chicken. Tomatoes and red onions. Give a sprinkle of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Bake in a 500 degree oven for 12-17 minutes--depending on how thin your crust is. The last time, the dough wasn't as thing and it took longer. Last night, the crust was thinner and only took about 12-15 minutes. 
Let the pizza rest for a minute on your cutting board, slice it and sprinkle with fresh chopped cilantro. Very tasty!
1 comment:
This reminds me of reading 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' where the family did pizza night almost every week. If you make a lot of dough and sauce ahead of time, you'd be set for a month, I would guess. Then top with whatever is seasonal or you happen to have on hand!
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