Do people really need pizza recipes? Probably not. However, I eat it a lot and sometimes think that I should publicly declare my love for it. Plus you might get inspired by the pictures and decide to go create your own slices of happiness!
I have long ago stopped accurately measuring ingredients for pizza dough. What you're about to see is roughly 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp instant yeast, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, and 2 tsp sugar. Oh and a good splash of oil, because my husband likes it that way. Possibly. I can't be sure those are the ratios I used on this particular day. So be flexible, ok? There's no reason to be afraid of yeast.
This here is a pan sprayed with oil and coated with corn meal. This is essential if you plan on getting your pizza off of the pan.
This is pizza dough that has risen (for an hour or two?), been kneaded, and allowed to rest multiple times during this stretching-out process. I don't like fighting with dough, so I usually push it to the edges a little bit, leave it for 5 minutes, and keep coming back until it looks pretty.
Pizza topped with easy pizza sauce and a mix of cheddar and mozzarella cheese.
If you're new to the pizza thing, I should note that I often let the pizza rest, fully made like this, for about 45 minutes. The longer you wait, the more oven spring on that crust! YUM.
Here it is after being cooked for about 15 minutes in a 450 degree oven. Maybe. Again, one of those things in which I don't take precision too seriously.
Kind of puffed up a little, huh? Oops. I could have used a bigger pan and spread it a lot thinner, but my husband gets cranky if the crust gets too thin.
Speaking of cranky, I should note that the above pizza was specially made for him. I, on the other hand, don't care about perfectly round pizzas, or oil in my crust, or about how thick my crust is. I also like black olives. Here's mine:
Mine was also cooked on a pizza stone, because I love the extra chewiness :)
The pizza was heavenly, and you would probably benefit greatly from planning to make some very soon.
Please and thank you.
i just made pizza tonight before i even saw your blog! it may be the best pizza i have ever made. i'm getting better at the crust and i think the cornmeal really helps the bottom cook (at least when you use a cookie sheet). today i topped mine with jalepeno sausage, green peppers and onions. brent's half also had jalepeno peppers from the garden (i chopped and froze some last summer). it was yummy. i should have let the crust rise longer but we were hungry and i still need to work on getting the chewiness of the crust down but i'm getting better all the time :)
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