Basic Pizza Dough

Week 7

This week's host was Betsy she choose Basic Pizza Dough. Recipe on page 137 of our book. Baking instructions of page 139 of our book. The books baking instructions are for a cheese pizza. I couldn't help but add to the cheese pizza recipe since it looked so boring.

It was a relief to know that this week's recipe choice was something I could make for dinner. (Kill two birds with one stone.) There is something to say about homemade pizza. It always tastes better then take out. It's also not difficult to make and you can personalize it as you please. For me that means, the more vegetables the better.

Making the dough was fairly simple. I choose to do half whole wheat flour in my dough. It makes me happy when recipes have that option because my choice is always to add whole wheat flour. This way I am certain it won't mess up the outcome and taste of the finished product. 

Being a part of this baking club and not having a food processor or stand alone mixer seems to be a problem. I should of for seen this, right? Since the recipe wanted you to use a food processor with dough hooks I had to improvise. That means doing it by hand. I mixed all the ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Then used my hand to mix the dough in the bowl until it all stuck together. After I removed the dough to a floured surface and kneaded until dough was smooth, about 5-10 minutes. After this process I continued to follow the books instructions.

After the dough was finished rising I cut it in half. The recipe made enough for two pizza's, which is to much for our family, so I wrapped half in plastic wrap to freeze. The dough will stay good for up to a month in the freezer. Ya for another quick meal within the next month.

I rolled the dough out into a circle as instructed by the book. Nice circle eh! HA. Then remembered that I didn't have a round stone ware for baking pizza. Hmm. . .

back to a rectangular pizza in a baking pan. Maybe not as pretty as a circle but still tastes the same, right. Obviously I had to re-roll the dough to fit the pan and then use my hand to mold the dough exactly to the rectangular shape of the baking pan. Once that was done I was ready for my sauce a toppings.

SAUCE:  Half a bottle or one small can of store bought pizza sauce of your choice. Two cloves of diced garlic, 1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce, and mix together.

TOPPINGS: Half of an onion, one green pepper, one tomato, pepperoni, fresh Parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese.

YUMMY! Time to bake.

Looks great and tasted great to. The crust didn't taste any different from the other pizza dough I make from scratch. That disappointed me. I guess it's because I was expecting something different then the normal, maybe a higher class crust.

A Tip & A Question:

1. Pizza dough isn't very technical as the recipe describes in the book. I felt like it was pretty flexible even though I didn't have all the proper equipment.
2. My crust was not as fluffy and soft as I would of liked. Is that because I didn't have a pizza stone to bake it on?