pizzeria

 I'm hungry.  And you must be also!

Let's make pizza, shall we?

I posted this pic on FB last night:

Many of you asked for the recipe,

so here ya go:

Yummy crust:

1 Cup warm water

2 tsp. yeast

1 tsp. honey

2 Tbl. olive oil

3 Cups flour**

1 tsp. salt

(I always double this recipe..and split it into three crusts. Perfect sense, I know.)

Alright, now listen up.  The more I bake, the more I learn that a successful outcome

lies in the technique and quality ingredients, way more than the recipe.

Although a good recipe is important, of course.

Gently mix the warm water, yeast & honey in a large

mixing bowl.

Let it rest for about ten minutes.

It should be good and bubbly-looking.

Then add in oil, flour and salt.

**Now, let's take a moment to talk about the flour.

First of all, I always use a portion of freshly milled grain flour

of some sort, to add a healthy punch. Usually just wheat...but last night's

had some Ezekiel flour in it. :)

But for the rest of the flour, I can't stress enough how important

good all-purpose flour is.

I use King Arthur's unbleached all-purpose,

and I tell you what...it is fabulous.

You can even get it at Walmart.

Anyway, enough flour-preaching.

Mix all that up, and kneed by hand, in a bread machine,

or with a dough-hook (which is what I do.)

About 6 minutes should be enough.

Then let the dough rise for about an hour.

It will double in size and be so soft and glorious to handle.

I get weirdly excited about lovely dough.

Turn your oven on to 550 degrees.

Yes, 550.

And if you have a pizza stone, put that sucker on the very bottom

rack of the oven before pre-heating.

Divide dough in half (or however you want),

roll it out into circles, of course.

Or do a square.

Who's gonna stop you?

I use a pizza peel sprinkled with corn meal,

put the dough circle on that, then all the toppings, 

then ever so gently slide the pizza off onto the very hot pizza stone.

It's delicate dance that often leads to cursing.

Not really.  Well, the cursing part anyway.

However, if you don't have a pizza peel,

just use a cookie sheet or pizza pan,

and put your beautiful creation on the lowest rack

(unless you don't think your pan can handle the intense heat!).

Bake for about 6 minutes.

And then you'll have a deliciously fabulous pizzeria pizza!

**This blog post literally took me about 12 hours to finish writing.

Distractions were ridiculously abundant today.

I hope one lick of what I said above makes one lick of sense.

Good day to you.