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Pizza Dough
Finally made the pizza dough. I have never done this before and since my SIL Barbara was kind enough to send me some pizza dough recipes, here is the result of one of them.
Barb - if you are reading this, I need help. It was a comedy watching Doug and I try and move that cheese laden dough onto the hot stone. Do you use a peel? I had to Google that because I don't have one and was not sure what it looked like.
Right. Let's get started.
It’s a two day process for this recipe yet very easy.
Step one is to make the dough and mix the cheese toppings.
You will need:
1 package yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
Dissolve yeast in warm water.
Stir in salt, sugar and oil.
Add flour and mix.
Knead dough on a lightly floured counter for 5 -10 minutes.
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Place a tablespoon oil in a gallon baggie. Coat baggie interior with oil.
Place dough in baggie; squeeze air out.
Refrigerate overnight.
For the Cheese toppings you'll want:
8 oz. mozzarella cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
½ tsp basil
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Sliced pepperoni
Grate mozzarella and place in a bowl. Measure spices and Parmesan cheese and add to bowl. Mix it up and refrigerate.
Day Two – Assemble and Bake
Roll out the dough and, according to some directions on the pizza stone box, I used cornmeal to be sure it wouldn't stick. Looks like it's coming along well.
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It's looking good, don't you think? Well....just wait.
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Here comes the fun part. The dough stuck to the plastic pastry sheet. I used lots of cornmeal to prevent this but noooooooo. Every time we try and move it, working together with metal spatulas and a pie cutter and anything flat we can use to get under the dough, it folds up and sauce starts dripping off. The pizza stone is now 450 degrees and I brilliantly lift the plastic pastry sheet and try rolling the thing under the dough so that maybe it will glide off on the hot stone.
No such luck! I did in fact ruin the pastry sheet by burning it because, did I mention the stone was 450 degrees? Finally we cut the pizza and put it on the stone in two pieces. This would be two pieces with sauce and pepperoni flowing off the sides.
450 degrees for 12- 15 minutes.
It stuck a bit.
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My stone! My new stone is covered with bits of hardened baked on dough! Will it come out?
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Is the stone supposed to look like this?
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Well....I'm not giving up. It tasted great, my son even said so, but I definitely need guidance.
By the way, this is from a school recipe, so a shout out to Barb and Ms. Hartman.
If anyone can give me hints I'd love to hear from you! Wandering Coyote, you are the master of bread making - give me a hint!
Barb - I will email you tomorrow :-)
Ooooookaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy...
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your dough was probably too sticky.
Secondly, flour would have been better to put on the pastry sheet than cornmeal. And pastry sheets are not something I recommend because everything sticks to them and because of their surface, it's hard to keep them adequately floured. The counter is a better option.
Third, you probably should have well-cornmealed your pizza stone.
Also, you should check out any literature that came with the pizza stone. Mine, for instance, needed to be seasoned. If it needs seasoning, you should oil it before putting anything on it.
My pizza stone came with a little scraper thingy for getting stuck on food off. In your case, I'd soak the stone well and gently scrape the food off with the edge of a plastic spatula. Or a non-steel scrubby thing. Just don't scrape it with anything that will harm the surface.
I hope that was helpful. I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience...
WC - You are incredibly helpful. My SIL Barb(who gave me the recipe) said to cornmeal the stone as well.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a bad experience, frustrating maybe, but I had visions of this beauty of a pizza coming out. You should have seen us trying to ply the dough off that sheet being mindful of a very hot stone inches away from our arms!
The pizza stone box didn't come with a scrapey-thingee or any literature. On the side of the box it states to use cornmeal, don't scratch it, preheat the stone and don't clean with soap. That's it.
I will try again. Love a challenge. Thanks for the advice!
Umm umm umm ... I don't have one ... I don't know - I hate that!!
ReplyDeleteI haven't tried this, but I've heard of putting cornmeal on the back side of a flat cookie sheet and using that as a peel. But I'm thinking you could end up with cornmeal all over the bottom of a very hot oven.
ReplyDeleteI have a Pampered Chef stone and they suggested cooking something greasier - like frozen french fries or fish sticks on it first to season it.
Hope you have better luck next time! I love homemade pizza and might give your dough recipe a try soon.