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Pizza (September 2023)

I am finally writing this up after having made nearly this exact recipe maybe 15 times. (See the Gallery section for a trip down memory lane). Easily my favorite dish that I make and a good deal of fun making it as well. Of course, what does it mean to “make pizza”. I don’t slaughter pigs to make pepperoni, I’m not studying caseiculture to make mozzarella, and I am not even making the sauce (yet). In this blog, I make the dough and everything else it bought. It should be noted for the purists that I am not reaping wheat to mill the flour.

Anyways, I usually come back to this recipe to get the measurements for the dough right. They conveniently add the weights of the ingredients, which I now think all recipes should do now that I own a scale.

Rating:

Ingredients

Dough

Et al.

Logs

What’s fun about making pizza dough is that it is technically baking and dough is involved, but it is extremely easy (when compared to making other breads that are baked with dough). I typically make the dough a day or two before I make the pizza whenever I have some free time. You can let it rise for a bit on your counter then stick it in the fridge until you are ready to go.

I recommend using a food scale with a big measuring cup to do most of the portioning out. I have found it makes things easiest. The recipe for the dough is pretty straightforward. Make sure your water is lukewarm so that the yeast can thrive and do their thing. Once you have your little dough ball, you must cover it in a bowl and cover the dough in olive oil. To do this, I usually put a small amount of olive oil in the bowl and then roll the dough around so it’s good and covered. This helps prevent the dough from drying out.

I then let the dough sit out on the counter for ~30 minutes before popping it in the fridge. You should probably let it proof for at least a few hours before trying to cook, and I have stored the dough for over 48 hours before cooking.

Once you are ready to bake a pie, pull the dough out. For my own purposes, I cook in a normal (non-pizza) oven on a rectangular sheet because I’m a casual. So the goal is to transform your dough ball into a rectangle roughly the size of my tray. This takes some practice, but once you do it a few times it’s pretty much a breeze. I usually try to practice my tossing skills at this point, throwing the dough and catching it with my fist. This is a bit pointless because I am making a large, thin circle but it works and it could come in handy someday.

Making the dough thin is a good thing, and I have found having a shape that is too big for the tray is a good thing as you can easily fold it back into the tray to make a thick crust on the edge. Once I have my dough ready to go, I drizzle some olive oil on everything but the crust and then pop it in the hot oven for ~2 minutes. This is pre-baking and I have found it makes the overall product better because I don’t have a pizza stone or a pizza oven. With one of those tools, this isn’t necessary as you can cook the dough at a super high temperature. Without them, if you cook everything together, you will find the dough is slightly unfinished while the toppings are burning.

Once the pre-baking is done, it’s pretty much just free styling. I put some nice sauce and some decent cheese on top. I like pepperoni, onions, garlic, and spinach on my ‘za, but that’s just me. Live your own life. Eat your own pizza. Throw it back in the oven looking pretty and you’ll have a delicious slice ~12 minutes later (at least in my oven at the hottest temperature it will run).