My wife and I love to make pizza dough and entertain guests with fresh pies topped fresh mozzarella cheese and vegetables that are in season.
For us, the idea of pizza night comes from 2 places, childhood memories and from a discussion we had as we drove across the south on our honeymoon. On that trip my wife read Barbara Kingsolver’s book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” aloud to me as the miles and days passed. Pizza night was a standing date for the family in that book, and as we began our life together, we decided to try and make it part of our lives as well.
The memory of her reading as I drove is one of my favorite from that trip and I am reminded of it every few weeks when I break out the flours and yeast to make pizza dough.
Over the past few years I’ve developed a versatile dough based on a recipe I found in Peter Reinhart’s book, “American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza”. Taking his recipe for a Neo-Neapolitan / New Haven-style dough and adding a few twists, I’ve found a dough that cooks well in my convection oven using a pizza stone preheated to 450 degrees for a half hour before baking off a pie.
This dough cooks up crisp and brown on the bottom and provides ample crust, or as I like to call the “the bones” to use as a hand hold.
Makes 2-3 dough balls
15.5 oz unbleached bread flour (by weight)
7.0 oz semolina flour (by weight)
1 tbs. sugar
1 tbs. honey
2 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. garlic powder
1 tbs. oregano or marjoram
3.5 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp instant yeast
1.75 cups room temp water
You can make this dough by hand, however over time I’ve grown tired of the endless kneading and opt instead for a standing mixer. The following process uses a mixer, but you can approximate if you prefer to complete by hand.
1. In your mixer’s bowl, combine the flours, sugar, honey, oil, garlic powder, herbs and salt, mixing with a dough hook attachment on low speed.
2. Combine yeast and water, allowing the yeast to bloom and creating a slurry before adding to the mixing bowl. Ideally, you should add a bit of your slurry at a time as its easy to add more water to a dough and hard to remove it.
3. Mix on medium speed for five minutes until the dough takes shape and balls around the hook. Turn mixer off and allow dough to rest for another five minutes.
4. After the dough rests, mix again on medium speed for another three minutes, then remove to a surface lightly dusted with flour.
5. Cut in two or three pieces and create dough balls.
At this point, I will either place each ball into a zip lock bag with a splash of olive oil and into the fridge if I plan on using the next day or freezing, or place into metal mixing bows, again with olive oil to rise for use later that day.
Your baking time will depend on your tools and practice. For my convection oven, I bake at 450 degrees for eight to eleven minutes, turning the pie 180 degrees about half way though the bake. I highly recommend using a pizza stone or unglazed ceramic tile, but you can also use a baking sheet or your grill to turn out a pizza that will have your friends asking, “Is pizza night next Monday as well?”
