Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Thin Pizza Crust

Thin Pizza Crust from Tori Avey

This recipe makes one thin, 11-13" pizza crust.
  • Put into a bowl and whisk:
    • ⅓ cup warm water (~95℉);
    • 1 tsp sugar, honey, vel sim.; and
    • 1 tsp active dry yeast.
  •  Cover and let stand to proof the yeast. If it’s not nice and foamy within 10 minutes, you need fresher yeast (although when I did this two days ago, our nearly-empty jar of Fleischmann’s that had a 2015 expiration date on it produced yeast that was still quite active).
  • In the meanwhile, put into another, larger bowl
    • 1 cup all purpose flour and
    • 1 tsp kosher salt
  •  and whisk to combine.
  • Add the clearly active yeast mixture and 1 Tbsp olive oil to the dry ingredients.
  • Mix to combine thoroughly and then
  • knead for five minutes. (I did this in the bowl and needed (ha!) no more flour for the kneading).
  • Form into a ball and
  • transfer to a smaller, oiled bowl.
  • Turn to completely coat the ball with oil.
  • Cover and let rise in a room that is ~76-80℉ for about 2 hrs (until double in size).
[Insert two hours worth of music & other chores here.]
  • Place a pizza stone, cast iron bistro pan, or some other such item into an oven and preheat to 450℉.
  • Punch down the dough.
  • Get out some parchment, sprinkle with semolina (I switched from corn meal and like the texture slightly better), and start rolling out the dough from the center, shifting 90° with each stroke. (With other crust recipes, I get slightly better results when I can use my fingers to knead the dough out into a round shape, then pick it up and stretch the outside circumference to enlarge the circle. I still find myself finishing with a rolling pin, though. This crust is fairly loose, so rolling pin it is.)
  • When the dough is ~13", sprinkle with a bit more corn meal semolina,
  • prick all over with a fork,
  • flip,
  • brush with olive oil, and
  • top with desired toppings.
  • Transfer to heated stone or iron in the oven. (I slide a thin metal pizza pan underneath the parchment, just set the parchment with the pizza down on the hot stone or iron, and slide the fake peel out; the parchment makes a convenient tool for removing the cooked pizza from the oven and for containing the mess when cutting and serving.)
  • Bake for ~12 minutes
  • check for desired browning of the crust, and either leave in for a bit longer or
  • take out, cut, and serve.

3 comments:

St. Izzy said...

Today we had pizza day at brunch. There were three home-made pizza doughs used and topped in various ways. This recipe right here is still my favorite, and it beat out a dough made in the food processor with instant yeast (from one of the ATK shows, where they cooked the pie in a cast iron skillet). This recipe here was much easier to work with and much more pleasant on the teeth. The third dough came with one of the other families, and while it was good, I enjoyed the fig/arugula pizza we made with the recipe above a bit more than the one made with PJ’s. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t (and didn’t) turn down any of them (and might have even gorged myself on multiple slices of each), but this one I still like more.

Another preference note: I think I liked the texture of the crusts done on the pizza stone better than the ones done on the cast iron bistro pan. Again, though, I wouldn’t turn down either, and the bistro pan is much easier to grab and use than the stone.

Procedural note: I’ve solved the pizza peel problem. I roll out the dough on a sheet of parchment, then slide a thin round pizza pan (came with the toaster oven) under the parchment before topping the pie. I use that thin pan to transport the floppy bunche of parchment, dough, and toppings to the oven, where I slide the parchment over to the hot baking object inside our normal oven. When it’s time to pull the pie out, the crust is rigid, and I can either pick the whole thing up by the parchment or slide the thin pan back underneath to move the pizza to a cutting board. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

St. Izzy said...

Yesterday we did another pizza day for brunch. I tried a different recipe that makes four crusts and takes a long, easy time about fermenting. It is from a Milk Street episode entitled “Pizza and Pasta.” I didn’t like it as much. It was very hard and crisp, which isn’t really my thing. I like for the edges to have some crispiness, but the middle to be soft enough that I have to fold the point of my wedge-shaped slice onto the rest before I pick it up. But if you’re looking for a very crisp thin crust, feel free to hunt up the Milk Street recipe.

St. Izzy said...

I am about to put another pizza crust recipe here. It’s another slow-ferment, but it produces a crisp crust & soft crumb. It’s a very nice texture. The downsides are that 1) you have to make it a day or so ahead of time and then let it rise slowly in the ’fridge and 2) it takes ~half again as much flour per crust, so that means more carbs.

Link to follow when the recipe is posted.