The quest for perfect homemade pizza dough–I thought–was over. Through a great recipe my sister Erica found on a food blog, I was under the impression that we had arrived. I posted the recipe here and called it a day. And then, Christmas happened . . . and I discovered that I couldn’t have been more wrong.
With all three of us girls staying at my parents’ house, spouses and children included, the burden of cooking couldn’t fall only on Mom and Dad. So just like we’ve done in family vacations past, we distributed days and each couple took a few turns at the stove. Erica and Dave announced that they were making pizza using a new recipe that Erica had discovered here, and folks, this pizza crust blew the other one far, far away. This pizza crust is hereby declared the Winner of Winners.
Erica and Dave are also declared the Winners of Winners.
The crust is chewy and bubbly and perfect. Here it is uncooked . . .
. . . and here it is after about 12 minutes on the pizza stone.
It has to be prepped the day before because it hangs out and rises for 18 hours. But don’t be intimidated by that! It rises all by its lonesome with no effort from you, and the results are so spectacular that even if it did require babysitting during its lengthy rising time, it would still be worth it.
(Speaking of babysitting, time to insert a random picture of me and Alice.)
Top that there with pepperoni if you have a pepperoni-obsessed husband like I do . . .
. . . or spread a thin layer of Boursin over the dough instead of tomato sauce, and toss on some ham and asparagus for a pizza that sends me to the moon.
I will now show you the lore of this genius who crafted the recipe. Jim Lahey, I owe you big time for sharing this with the world.
Ingredients
(Makes 6 pizzas)
7 ½ cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp salt
½ tsp active dry yeast
3 cups water
Making the dough
- Whisk together flour, salt and yeast. Stir with a wooden spoon and add 3 cups of water little by little.
- Mix dough with your hands and shape it into a rough ball. If the dough isn’t coming together, add 1 TBS of water at a time until it comes together.
- Put the ball of dough into a large clean bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 18 hours at room temperature (about 72 F) in a draft free area. The dough should double in size and form tiny bubbles on the surface during this time.
- Lightly flour your work surface and dump the dough onto it. Shape it into a rough rectangle and divide it into 6 equal portions.
- Taking the portions one at a time, gather the 4 corners towards the center, creating a ball. Let the ball rest on your work surface seam-side down, dust the top with flour, and cover with a damp towel. Let all the portions rest in this way for 1 hour. (To make ahead: you can make the dough up to this point 3 days ahead. Wrap each portion of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate. When ready to bake, unwrap the dough and let it rest at room temperature for 2-3 hours on a floured surface, covered with a damp towel.)
Making the pizzas
- When the dough has 1 hour of rest remaining, preheat a pizza stone in the oven at 450 F in the upper third of the oven. (If you’re using a baking sheet, keep the rack in the middle of the oven and don’t preheat the sheet).
- Taking the first portion of dough, lift the dough off the work surface and gently stretch it with your fingers into a 10-12’’ disk, moving the dough through your hands in a circular fashion and letting gravity help stretch it. Take care not to squash the air bubbles inside.
Here’s how I do it, gently pushing the air bubbles towards the edge of the circle:
- 3. Place the dough on a sheet of parchment paper and gently stretch it a little further. Add desired toppings. (Note: don’t load it down too heavily—light on the toppings makes for a much better pizza.
- 4. Slide the pizza still on the parchment paper onto the pizza stone or baking sheet and cook for 10-12 minutes, until dough is thoroughly baked and the cheese is bubbly. Remove from the oven, cut and serve!
- 5. Let the pizza stone reheat for a few minutes between pizzas, and repeat with remaining portions of dough.
- Guys, if pizza even remotely appeals to you, you’ve got to try this one! Seriously. Jimmy-boy done did good.
Click here for printer-friendly version: Perfect Pizza Dough
White Pizza with Roma Tomatoes
Last week I was unexpectedly told I could work from home on Thursday and Friday, which was not only awesome for its own sake, but because it allowed me to hibernate in front of our living room window unit instead of venturing outside into the blistering sun, which has the potential to scorch the very skin off my bones in about 1 minute flat.
So Thursday and Friday, I booted up our old Compaq laptop (the one that the burglars in January took out of the case and then–hah hah–did not deign to take), logged into my remote desktop, and set up a little station right in front of the air conditioner with: my coffee. The laptop (incidentally, still covered in fingerprinting dust from the detective). My work cell phone. My coconut Greek yogurt (divine). A big glass of water. Two cereal bars. An old, battered copy of Jane Eyre. What ensued were delightfully peaceful mornings and afternoons, with my attention riveted on the passionate dialogues between Jane and Mr. Rochester and the chilling relationship between Jane and the inexorable St John Rivers, with the occasional distraction of answering my cell phone to set up a delivery appointment for a shipment of citric acid, sending an order confirmation to a customer in South America, or getting a transportation quote for a customer Stateside, or going back and forth about a mysterious wire transfer that a customer claims to have sent but we never received. And then–back to the plights of Jane as her will is tried and bent under the stern command of St John Rivers!
Aaaaah. Life is good.
The downside of this break in routine–I got a little lazy with my blogging. Thankfully I had this recipe hanging around in my drafts, and it’s the perfect follow-up to Erica’s pizza crust recipe from last week. So it’s all coming together after all, despite my neglectful 4th of July ways!
I love the simplicity of this lil’ white pizza. It’s not up my husband’s alley, so I’m pretty much guaranteed to get it all to myself. Mmmmm!
My sister Erica called me up and pretty much commanded me to make it. I’m so glad that after a bossy start in my career as a sister, I have learned to listen to the Blonde One when it comes to culinary matters. And decorating matters. And many, many other matters.
Ingredients
(makes 1 pizza)
1 pizza crust
2 spoonfuls Alfredo sauce
2 handfuls grated cheese (mozzarella + Italian blend)
1 sprinkling grated Parmesan cheese
2 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
Preheat the oven to 500 F with a pizza stone inside, and shape the pizza crust on a piece of parchment paper.
Spread the Alfredo sauce on the pizza crust very thinly. I emphasize–very thinly. If not, things get a little gross. Sprinkle on the mozzarella/Italian blend, and then layer on the thin slices of tomato.
Sprinkle a little Parmesan on top of the tomatoes.
Slide the parchment paper with the pizza on top straight on to the pizza stone as soon as the oven is fully preheated.
Bake at 500 for 10-14 minutes, consume, rejoice! You could even sprinkle it with fresh basil right before eating, if that’s your thing.
Now this is my idea of a good pizza! Not a piece of pepperoni in sight.
Click here for printer-friendly version: White Pizza with Roma Tomatoes