This tasty goodness can be enjoyed by your family too. Whenever I tell someone that we make our own pizza dough most react by telling me, "I work and don't have time to make pizza dough". I am here to tell you that it really is no big deal. Yes, yeast can be intimidating. I cannot tell you how many times I bought packages of yeast just to let them spoil in the pantry after years of not using them. Finally, last year I faced my fear of the yeast and I am so glad I did.
I started with Bobby Flay's pizza dough. Well, saying I started there isn't quite the truth. I went through many other recipes (that shall remain nameless) before landing with the Bobby Flay version. I have tweaked it slightly by adding in the basil, oregano, onion powder, and garlic powder. I will take his recipe and explain it by going through some of the issues I faced the first 12 times or so I made this dough.
Here are the players:
Basically, throw all of this in to your mixer bowl. I kid.
Ingredients:
3 1/2-4 cups of bread flour (you can use all purpose but the crust will be chewier)
1 package of rapid rise yeast
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 1/2 cups of warm water (I use hot tap water. I checked the temperature several times and it was right where it needed to be--110 degrees F)
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons oregano
2 tablespoons basil
1 tablespoon olive oil--to grease the dish for rising the dough
Directions:
1. Pour everything but the water and oil in to the mixer. Don't do what I did in this picture and throw in the oil too early.
2. Using a dough hook, start the mixer and and let the dry ingredients combine.
3. Add in the oil and then slowly add the water. ( Do this instead.)
4. Let mix for several minutes until well combined. It should look like this:
If it starts falling apart and looking like the picture below, then you need to add more flour a couple of tablespoons at a time. As a general rule, I start out with 3.5 cups of bread flour and then keep adding flour until it looks likes the picture above.
5. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and place on a clean floured surface and knead the dough by hand for a few minutes and create a dough ball. I used to skip this step but it is really important. Just roll it over on top of itself and press it down with the heal of your hand. Rinse and repeat.
6. When you are done kneading hold the dough and roll it under until the dough ball is smooth on top. The bottom of the dough ball is not smooth--at least mine isn't. Place it in the greased dish and cover with a tea towel and place in a warm place for an hour and a half. I use the bread proof setting on my convection oven.
7. It should come out looking like this.
8. Turn out on to a clean floured surface and split in two equal pieces. Set aside one half. Knead in enough flour to made sure the dough is not sticky. Begin rolling it out with a rolling pin. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
9. Roll out, constantly rotating the dough so that no one side gets too thin or is left too thick. When you are happy with the thickness (we happen to like insanely thin pizza dough), cut into two even pieces and place on your pizza pan of choice.
10. Place your toppings of choice in the middle of each dough. Calzones typically have ricotta cheese and DON'T have sauce. Anything else is fair game. Be sure to fold under the edges so that the goodness doesn't run out and all over your oven. I find folding under works much better than folding over, because if you fold over you get this big dough hunk just hanging there on top of your otherwise pretty calzone.
11. Bake at 450 for approximately 20 minutes, rotating half way through. Take them out when they are golden and bubbly.
12. Serve with your favorite pizza sauce.
After thoughts:
In full disclosure, I should state at this point that this is jarred pizza sauce. My sauce maker, Matt, did not have the ingredients he needed for his homemade pizza sauce. And it was already 8:30 at night, the time when most 2 year olds are going to bed, not sitting down to eat supper.
This same dough recipe can be used for a regular pizza just as easily.
Be sure to take the second dough that you set aside way back when, a few steps ago, and wrap tightly in saran wrap a few times over. It will be enough for two large thin crust pizzas or one large regular crust pizza. Set it out in the fridge the night before you want pizza again and it will be ready for you to easily sauce and top for an easy week night dinner. It will need to be rolled out on a floured surface with additional flour on top of the dough until it is to your desired thickness and that is it!
No comments:
Post a Comment