Last night I learned a dear friend (dear enough so I bothered to make pizza for him–even show him how to stretch the dough, which means I let him in my kitchen) was, for a brief time, a professional jazz & modern dancer. So that was pretty damn awesome.
I also thought awesome when he took the tiny pitcher of caramel sauce and poured its contents into his empty ice cream dish and spooned plain sauce into his smiling face. It made the troubles and travails associated with the sauce worthwhile. (I started with less-then-fully-refined sugar, so it looked sort of caramel-ly from the start and then it crystallized about two seconds later. Eventually I just added the cream anyway, threw in some cinnamon sticks, and let it slowly simmer into a sort of dulce de leche-type concoction. Worked with the sweet corn ice cream with sliced almonds on top. Sort of like caramel corn, get it?)
Molly’s Pizza Dough
2 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper (optional)
3 cups all-purpose flour
Dissolve yeast and water in the bowl of a standing mixer. Use the dough hook to combine everything else in. Eventually the dough will pull away from the sides of the bowl. Do not add more flour, since you want the dough quite wet to be able to stretch it cracker-thin as my dashing husband likes it. Cover bowl with a towel (did I have to tell you to use a clean one? I hope that’s obvious) and let it sit to rise and double and whatever for about an hour.
Punch it down (so satisfying!) and divide into quarters. Put the four pieces of dough on a counter or large cutting board. Cover them and let them sit another half hour or so.
Work each one into a foot-wide circle or whatever shape it will allow itself to be stretched into. Top with some yummy stuff (sauteed garlic slices, prosciutto slices, and cooked eggplant topped with grated slices of parmesan is pictured above) and bake it as hot an oven as you can find until brown and crispy.
Maris | 04-Oct-08 at 2:25 pm | Permalink
This looks so great! I absolutely LOVE homemade pizza. Sometimes it’s even better than when you get it out.