Perfect Pizza at Home

Perfect Pizza at Home

Ok, I’ve been at this for a long time. I had an old bread recipe that I used for everything from white bread to pizza dough. I’ve been doing this for the last 13 years and I’ve nailed every aspect of homemade pizza, except for the dough itself. Well, that has finally changed. While perusing the net, I found several recipes, and I was looking for something close to the crispiness and inner chewiness of the pizza I had in Rome and Milan. Where my recipe always called for lard or shortening and 2 tablespoons of sugar, hot water, wait an hour punch down, wait another hour and then roll out dough. They kept saying don’t use sugar, if you have to use a fat or oil use olive oil and use very cold water. There is no need to let it rise, like in my old recipe. It does something better then just rising while waiting in the fridge for 12-24 hours.

Ok. So here it is, 13 years of experience from trial an error:

• 4.5 cups of flour
• 1.5 cups of 40 degree cold water
• 1/2 a Tablespoon of salt
• 2 Tablespoons of regular or light olive oil.
• 1 package of quick yeast (normal yeast works too).

Mix everything in a large bowl, minus about .5 cups of flour. You will use most of the remaining flour while kneading the dough. When the stretchy dough comes together in the bowl, it’s time to drop it onto a surface that is holding the remaining .5 cup of flour. Let the excess flour sit to the side, you can fold it in as you kneed it. Simple kneading technique, just push down the dough, fold it and push into it again and repeat for about 5 minutes, as your hands get sticky, dust the dough and your fingers with more flour that you have sitting on the side. After 5 minutes you should have a nice semi-sticky ball (please don’t let it be too dry and elastic, you want some moisture and tackiness left in the dough). Divide into 3 equal parts. Get 3 plastic ziplock bags, spray the inside with oil (press it flat and make sure the oil is all over the inside surface of the bags). Now, put one in the fridge overnight, and the other 2 in the freezer, they can be thawed later and used for 2 more pizzas!

After about 12-24 hours of sitting in the cold fridge, the yeast has started its amazing yet cold and slow process of chewing on the starch in the flour and everything is fermenting together into a great elastic ball of dough. When ready to use, you can take a pizza stone, a baking tray or whatever you have lying around and drop the dough onto it’s oiled surface (in the case of a pizza stone, you can use oil too, if the stone has already been seasoned, otherwise use cornmeal). You want to spread the dough out to about less then an 1/8th of inch thick. It’s ready for toppings, and it’s ready for the hottest setting you have on your oven (My gas oven goes to 500 degrees). It goes quick, sometimes it will be done within 10 minutes.

Take it out, let it sit for a couple of minutes and then slice and enjoy. You know have an amazing crust, tight on the outside and slightly chewy on the inside.

Some suggested toppings include prosciutto, pineapples, artichokes or mushrooms. I also like to dice a fresh tomato and sprinkle the chunks onto the store bought tomato sauce before adding the cheese. I use a 1/4 parmesan to 3/4 blend of mozzarella cheese, with a dusting of normal Italian seasonings and garlic powder.