Homemade Pizza...From the Bottom Up

  Okay, so we were in the mood for pizza. A really good pizza. In this city we do not have a "GOOD" Pizza Restaurant. Nope, we haven't found one yet. Sooo, Michael decided he was going to make one. Yes, from scratch. Hey there's a first time for everything. He's done fettuccine from scratch, but never pizza. Can I just tell you it was so "GOOD", that I never want another cardboard pizza again. He has truly turned me off of pizza in the box. He found a recipe he liked for Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough and figured he'd give it a try. It sure sounded simple enough and you know what? It was and here's how he did it.

Assemble your ingredients.

Sift your flours and salt together

and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring cup, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and let it sit for a few minutes.

Then pour it into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing and when it starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour dusted hands (and yes, this is the "messy" part of it).

Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough. Place the ball of dough in a large flour dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set in a warm room for about an hour until it doubles in size. When your hour is up remove the dough and knead it again (punching the dough down) to push the air out.

Rested and ready to shape.

We divided the dough into two pieces and wrapped one and stuck it in the freezer to use another time.

Press out to your desired shape. We made a standard round as we have a pizza stone and didn't need to use a sheet pan to cook it in.

Add your desired toppings.

Perfecto!

Pizza Dough

Excerpted from Jamie at Home

from Jamie Oliver

Ingredients

7 cups strong white bread flour or Tipo "00" flour or 5 cups strong white bread flour or Tipo "00" flour, plus 2 cups finely ground semolina flour
1 level tablespoon fine sea salt
2 (1/4-ounce) packets active dried yeast
1 tablespoon raw sugar
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

Sift the flours and salt onto a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring cup, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough.

Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Now remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands - this is called punching down the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the fridge (or freezer) until required. If using straightaway, divide the dough up into as many little balls as you want to make pizzas - this amount of dough is enough to make about six to eight medium pizzas.

Timing-wise, it's a good idea to roll the pizzas out about 15 to 20 minutes before you want to cook them. Don't roll them out and leave them hanging around for a few hours, though - if you are working in advance like this it's better to leave your dough, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator. However, if you want to get them rolled out so there's 1 less thing to do when your guests are round, simply roll the dough out into rough circles, about 1/4-inch thick, and place them on slightly larger pieces of olive-oil-rubbed and flour-dusted aluminum foil. You can then stack the pizzas, cover them with plastic wrap, and pop them into the refrigerator.

This recipe was cut in half to make two large pizzas.


Toppings
1/3 cup Colavita Garden Style Sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 ounces cooked italian sausage, casing removed
4 ounces cooked chorizo, casing removed
1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach
1/3 cup button mushrooms, sliced
20 slices pepperoni
1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded


Assemble your toppings onto the dough and bake for 10 - 15 minutes, in a 450 degree preheated oven.





By keeping this ready made dough in the freezer, we will never order another lousy take out pizza again. The taste was over the top delicious. The most time spent is letting the dough rest for the hour at which point you can be browning off the sausage and chorizo. Or if you choose other toppings that do not require cooking beforehand, you can browse around your favorite foodie blog posts, or whatever you choose to do in that time. So if you are looking for an easy dough for pizza and calzones this is one for you to try. I know we will be making this often and keeping it on hand from now on.
Michael and Carla