Pizza Pizza! and some Breadsticks!

Pizza is one of my biggest weaknesses. Thin crust, quattro formaggi, deep dish--basically, I would be happy eating pizza every night for dinner. So when my first attempt at making homemade pizza failed, I was heartbroken. Alton had let me down--his pizza recipe was no better than the store bought stuff. Of course, it could have been my old egg beater (the days before the KitchenAid), or my novice attempts at slow rise yeast doughs.

So I contacted my friend, Jen, who had told me about an awesome, never fail recipe she uses. She adapted it to be a cornmeal crust, and it sounded delicious. It's adapted from Mark Bittman's Pizza Dough recipe, which can be found here. Will and I loved our pizza--it was crisp and had this crumbly texture, which Will likened to cornbread. It's a different kind of pizza, but it's definitely worth the time to make.

mmmm!

The only changes I made to Jen's recipe were to do a slow rise in the fridge (though you can do a fast rise at room temp for 2 hours), and to knead my dough in a stand mixer. Personally, I don't think I kneaded the dough long enough to form an adequate amount of gluten. I have adjusted for this in the following directions.

Ingredients:
1 packet of yeast 
2 cups flour (I use bread flour)
1 cup polenta cornmeal
2 tsp salt
1 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil (can also use an infused oil--rosemary, garlic, etc.)

Directions:

Mix together the yeast, flour and salt. Using your paddle attachment, add the olive oil and water and mix until the dough forms a ball. Jen's note: the cornmeal dough tends to be stickier than flour to the touch. Another good reason to knead by machine instead of hand--no unnecessary amounts of flour added during the kneading process.   

Change to the dough hook attachment and knead the dough on low for 10 minutes. Transfer the ball of dough to a large, well oiled bowl and toss it lightly to coat the surface. 

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise in the fridge for 6-8 hours. Note: a slow rise in the fridge produces better flavor--thanks Alton! The dough should double in size.

Once your dough has risen, flatten it into a disk with your knuckles to release the air bubbles. Cut in half (recipe creates 2 med size pizzas). If you just want one, refrigerate half the dough in a ziploc bag that has been well oiled. Dough will keep for a week. 

Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. This dough is far easier to roll out than traditional pizza dough. Let sit for 10 minutes or so.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F with your pizza stone inside (I bought one from Target that came with a pizza cutter as well). Pizza stones create that crisper crust I crave. If you don't have a pizza stone, you can prepare your pizza on a cookie sheet. 

Top your pizza with your preferred ingredients and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes. My oven tends to be on the hot side, so I set it to 490 to cook for a bit longer. This way, the cheese on top doesn't burn before the crust is nice and crisp.

Let sit for at least 5 minutes before cutting and serving. It's worth the wait!

But wait...there's more!

Just this week I decided to give Alton another chance. Will and I got back from Santa Barbara and were craving some pie. So I turned on Flat is Beautiful one more time (trust me, guys, watch the episode before you bake!), and we picked up some high quality mozzarella from Trader Joe's. 

Like I said, the recipe was time consuming, and required a slow rise of 18-24 hours. But the pizza was FANTASTIC this time around. The dough actually rose this time--big note: I'm not sure why Alton recommends covering the dough loosely. The first time mine dried out in the fridge and I think that contributed to the poor quality. For me, a tight seal worked just fine.

Quality ingredients matter, too. 

But wait...there's EVEN more!

I did say breadsticks, didn't I? Will took home the extra dough from Alton's recipe and decided to make breadsticks today. Here's what he did:

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and let sit for 20 minutes. Roll out the dough and top with cheese and garlic infused olive oil. Cut in to strips with your pizza cutter.

Let sit for 15 minutes while your oven preheats to 500 degrees F. Bake on a pizza stone or cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes, or until the breadsticks are crisp and brown. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving with marinara or ranch dressing.

As Will says, "they're rustic!"

There are so many more pizzas to try and create. Being the pizza fiend I am, I'll be sure to try them all.

Happy Snacking!

Antonia