Pizza Night

So we needed an easy dinner Thursday, and decided on a “make your own” pizza night. This time, I made my own pizza crust (instead of stopping by Publix), and it turned out incredible!

This is the recipe I used for the crust, and the pizzas all had different toppings. Like CiCi’s… but way way way better. ;-)

The crust recipe made eight medium sized (8-inch) pizzas. We topped four of them, and have the rest in the freezer for later (or sooner!). I found a great kitchen gadget mom had recently — it looks like its from the 90’s, but this thing is so amazing, it shreds fresh mozzarella cheese. TADA! The Presto Salad Shooter! (they still make them today)  –>

A newbie tip for working with yeast: Make sure that the WARM water is just that! You want to have it closer to “hot” than room temp, but make sure you can still stick a finger in there without it burning you. Yeast will die in water that is too hot.

Here’s what you need:

Here’s how to do it:

1. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook, mix the flour, sugar and yeast at medium speed. At low speed, stir in half of the warm water, the olive oil and the salt, then add the remaining water and mix until a ball forms. Mix the dough for 2 minutes at low speed, 2 minutes at medium speed and 2 final minutes at low speed. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place until the dough has doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.
2. Put a pizza stone in the bottom of the oven and preheat the stone in the oven to 500° for about 45 minutes.

Once the dough has risen and is ready, I split it into 8 equal parts, and separately spread out each one.  Make sure to dust your surface so the dough doesn’t stick, and start out forming the dough pieces into balls. Then flatten it out into a small circle, and begin stretching the edges out very thinly. Once it’s reached about 5 inches diameter, lay it on your work surface and roll with a “floured” rolling pin. They don’t have to be perfectly round, but try to flatten them as much as possible. You want CRISPY pizza, right?!

We started with Greg’s pizza:

Mozzarella + Sausage sauteed with fennel seed & cayenne.

Then I made my ultimate pizza:

Mozzarella + Caramelized onions + basil + sundried tomatoes + kalamata olive + a little bit of pancetta = one happy Whitney! :)