Pizza. Home Crust. 1.26.22

 This is the pizza dough that seems to work best.  The recipe calls for more flour but then it's too dry and difficult (damn near impossible) to work.  It also calls for not kneading, but without kneading, the flour doesn't become evenly moist.   

Recipe (my version):

First, combine...

1 cup bread flour

2 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups warm water.

Stir together in bowl, cover, let sit until lots of bubbles.  About 30 min.

Then gradually work in about 2 more cups of bread flour.  I knead it together in the bowl.

Let dough rise for about an hour until doubled.

Cover and refrigerate,  It's nice to use a Rubbermaid type bowl so the cover doesn't come lose.  Refrigerate overnight or up to two week.  Longer duration gives a more sourdough like flavor and texture.

This is great because you don't have to worry about timing before making a pizza.  

To make the pizza, cut into half and roll out on floured board, making circles about 1/4 inch thick.

Then I use the cast iron skillet method.  One of the skillets is actually a cast iron tortilla pan, which is bigger but very shallow, like a pizza stone.  I oil the pans and transfer dough to pans.  Preheat oven to a toasty 500F.

The sauce:  1 cup home made tomato sauce ( just boiled down sauce tomatoes, pureed, frozen), thawed with 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp Italian herbs, dash pepper, 1 tsp dry minced garlic.  This time the sauce was a little runny so I mixed in a few spoons of dried tomato powder (slices of tomato dried in food dehydrator then blended into powder).  I made the tomato powder last summer using extra slicing tomatoes.  They actually have more flavor compared to the sauce tomatoes, and by drying them rather than cooking down, they don't cause an overcooked flavor.  More fresh.

Topping:  Spread on the sauce  then mozzarella, thin onion slices, thin garlic slices, 

mushrooms, Jalapeño slices, this time I added squash slivers,

Baking:  Place the cast iron skillets containing pizzas onto stove burners.  Turn heat up to high, or slightly below high.  Heat for 4 minutes,  The sough will rise and the bottom will start to brown.

Then transfer to 500F oven, mid to high rack,  Bake 7 minutes, until top is bubbling and toppings are roasted.

Remove from oven (careful, hot) onto cooling rack.  Sprinkle with dried oregano.

I think the squash might have been better under the other veggies.  It tended to fall off.   This is my favorite pizza recipe.  Even though I love sourdough crusts, this crust is really excellent.  Also these photos were before scattering on the oregano.  Finally, I like to add Tabasco sauce for extra zing.