Pizza Dough

Last night was the first firing of the Easy Bake Pizza Oven in our backyard – our friends have declared Fishing Opener = Pizza Opener. I get lots of questions about pizza dough and this is all I have to say – as with all doughs, fermentation is the only secret. You can use any dough you like, give it a full room temperature fermentation, divide and round and stick it in the refrigerator for some hours and have sweet success. There are lots of formulas out there that tell you to put the dough in the fridge immediately after mixing – but to me, these doughs have no character. Here’s my quick fire pizza challenge:

• 790 grams bread flour
• 590 grams warmish water (80F)
• 16 grams salt
• 4 grams instant yeast

1. Mix the dough – this is a soft dough, I use the dough hook on my kitchen aid for about 7 minutes in first speed. It won’t reach full development, but that’s OK because I give it lots of folds for strength.
2. Fold and put in a sprayed pie pan. Cover with plastic and ferment at warm room temp (75F-78F) for 30 minutes.
3. Fold and ferment for 30 minutes.
4. Fold and ferment for 30 minutes (total fermentation time is 2hours with 3 folds).
5. Divide into 6 pieces (225 grams each), round and put on a sprayed sheet pan. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for 6-12 hours.
6. Pull from the fridge and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour before using.

If you’re baking in your regular oven, preheat to 550F with a baking stone (or quarry tiles, which is my economical choice). Stretch the dough out onto a piece of parchment, put on some toppings and slide into the oven.

Last night’s pizzas were:

• the requisite margherita
• panna, mushrooms, red onions & scallions
• tomato, rapini, mozz, capicolla
• panna, pancetta, fried sage, scallions
• The Pagani Special: eggplant, feta, herby olive oil
• artichoke/mushroom/garlic salald, tomato

Next year we’ll need a fish option for this opening weekend, maybe the governor will attend?