How to make pizza (dough)

Yes, I ate all of that- no not in one sitting. Are you insane?

A few months ago, I was super excited to finally get a pizza pan. I never got a chance to use it until today. There were a few reasons for this, but perhaps the real reasons were because a.) I always forgot to buy pizza dough and b.) I couldn’t find my yeast packets when contemplating making my own pizza dough.

I had alot of downtime this weekend, partially because of all that snow. It’s the perfect excuse to stay indoors. So I cleaned and threw away alot of stuff and what do you know! I found the yeast packets! I was afraid they’d expire since I bought them last year, but they last until October 2010.

Pizza dough is possibly one of the easiest things to make because the yeast does all the work. You just have to wait for it to rise, fall, and rise again. While I love tomato sauce, I love white pizzas even more, so for me, it’s definitely worth making my own since pizza parlors charge so much for the white pies. But, that would also require me to have goat cheese, which I don’t. Next time I guess.

For the past 2 months or so, I’ve had at least a shiitake mushroom everyday. No joke. You can put it on anything. I’ve found that shiitake mushrooms pair really well with sesame oil so if I ever use shiitakes as a topping, I always make sure to drizzle them with a bit of the sesame oil. They go well in fried rice, sandwiches, salads, and of course, pizza. The sesame just brings out that particular flavor you can’t get from anywhere else.

The following recipe makes enough dough for TWO pizzas! HUZZAH

Mitch’s Basic Pizza Dough
Taken from here

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 tablespoons yeast
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Recipes:

By Hand- (Check out the original site if you want to make the dough in a food processor or a bread maker. Pft, tough it out and do it by hand!!)

Pour warm water between 85 to 115 degrees F into a bowl. The water should be very warm but still comfortable. It’s very important for the water to be between this range or else the yeast won’t be activated. Add the honey and salt and mix until well blended.

Don’t omit the honey because without it, the salt will kill the yeast. The yeast also feeds off the honey so that it can work to make the dough rise.

Add the yeast and mix some more. Let this mixture sit for about 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes, the yeast should be foaming, which means that it’s been activated. If it doesn’t work, it means your yeast is a dud and… you won’t be able to make pizza dough. But assuming it does work, add 1 cup of flour and the olive oil and mix until well blended. Add the rest of the flour (and any other additions) and mix well. The dough should turn into a ball. If the dough does not ball up because it’s too dry, add water one tablespoon at a time until it does. If your mixture is more like a batter, add flour one tablespoon at a time. Adding water or flour as needed to get the right consistency will assure you always get a perfect dough. Just remember to do it in small amounts.

Once the dough is balled up, place the ball on a floured board and knead for about a minute. This builds the gluten which helps the dough to rise and become fluffy when cooked. Place the dough in a plastic grocery bag or a covered bowl and store in a warm, dry area to rise.

After about 45 minutes the dough should have about doubled in size. Show it who’s boss and punch it down. That’s right, give it a good smack so it deflates. Let it rise for another hour to an hour and a half. The dough is now ready to be rolled out. You can punch the dough down one more time if you want and wait another hour or two before rolling out. The choice is yours.

This dough can also be made in advance and refrigerated for a day or so, or even frozen. Be sure to let it come to room temperature before using.

Assembling the pizza:

Yay! now you’re ready to roll out the dough and assemble the pizza. Mike does a wonderful step-by-step tutorial with pictures. Instead of using a rolling pin, I used my fingers to spread the dough out, but not before I gave it a few good kneads. So after some good kneading, roll the dough into a ball and begin to flatten it out with your palm.

At this point, you can attempt to toss the dough up in the air like the pros do. Don’t make the same mistake I did by coating the dough with flour and then tossing it because the flour landed everywhere on me. Eventually, the dough will stretch out like this below.

From there on,  use your fingers to spread the dough to the side. If the dough gets too thin in any section, just re-adjust and cover it up. Using your fingers, push the ends onto the side of the pan so that you form a crust.

Now, it’s time for the toppings! I used shiitake mushrooms, red peppers, and mozzarella cheese. I also used half pesto and half tomato sauce for the base. I have to admit, I liked the pesto side better.

I actually ended up making the tomato sauce because we always have tomatoes at home but never any tomato sauce. I threw a bit of garlic and diced tomatoes into some olive oil and cooked it until it was tender and the water came out. Then, I used a hand blender and pureed the tomatoes. At this point, it looked like this liquidity mess. Let it sit on the stove for another 10 minutes on medium heat. The liquid should evaporate and when it seems as if there’s only a little bit of liquid left, turn off the fire. I found the tomato sauce a bit on the salty side so I added about a tablespoon of ketchup. Yes- ketchup. It made it oh so yummy.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. When the crust begins to rise and brown and the cheese is bubbling, you’ll know that it’s done! Some people also like to puncture holes in the dough before topping it to prevent it from bubbling, but I didn’t. Just thought I should put it out there.

You should also check out:

1. Caramelized onion and fresh ricotta pizza
2. Pizza Gruppo (93 Plates)
3. How to make dumplings (from scratch!)
4. Arthur’s Pizza
5. Pizza Hut

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