Home-made Cheese and Pepperoni Pizza (the real version)

This is the most basic pizza dough and home-made sauce ever. You can do it. First you make the crust:

1 cup warm water

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp dry yeast (1 package)

2 cups flour (all purpose. The original recipe even called for whole wheat and I changed it all to all purpose to make it as authentic as possible. I also skipped the cornmeal which would make it rustic. No added health benefits or quaint gourmet additions, thanks)

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil, divided

Toppings

8 slices pepperoni

1 small block of mozzarella. Not Kraft, but not real circular mozzarella di bufala balls either.

1/2 cup tomato sauce (recipe to follow)

Instructions

Get a large bowl and combine the water and sugar. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it stand for 10 minutes. The yeast should bubble up, and if it decides to take its time about it, just be patient. Give it an extra 10 if need be. If it still didn’t bubble you probably need fresher yeast. If most of it bubbled but some didn’t, it’s probably because it’s not all touching the water, and in that case I think there’s not much you can do. Probably enough has bubbled to make your dough rise and you’ll be fine, so just keep going.

Now add the flour, salt and 1 tbsp of the oil and stir everything together. I’ve heard you’re only supposed to stir in one direction, and I’ve heard use your pinkie to do this so you don’t over-mix but you incorporate the flour pretty well, but sometimes I think life’s too short and pizza isn’t really a fussy thing as long as your yeast is good. And really, who’s going to over-mix when it’s so much less work NOT to overmix? The dough just needs to get to a state where it’s “very soft but doesn’t stick to your fingers or the counter.” Yeah…it kept sticking to my fingers, and it’s not even on the counter yet! I figure, once it kind of willing kind of comes together and you don’t see white flour trails in it you’re fine.

Now dump the ball out onto a clean counter onto a little bit of flour with a small mound of flour to the side, and knead for about 5-8 minutes. Depending on your location and altitude (I kid you not) the kneading stage could take more or less time. Working the gluten responds differently in every kitchen and every climate. Personally I have a very cold hands which is perfect for pastry dough and not so perfect for bread, so I make sure my hands have be preheated under very hot water for 30 seconds or so to warm them up. Then I dry them and get to work. Kneading is all about pushing down and away from you with the bottom of your palm (I kind of use the CPR hand position with one hand over the other because I don’t have a ton of body weight to throw into stretching the gluten), then gently lifting the stretched portion back over top of where you just pushed down. Rotate the dough 90 degrees clockwise. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until the cows come home.

If the cows don’t make it (aka “when you poke the dough with your index finger it quickly pops back up and the dent disappears) keep kneading. Use the flour on the side to get any sticky dough off your hands while kneading. Sometimes the dough tears and you need to add more flour to it, but I’ve heard it’s better to add it to your hands than to the dough directly. I think you use less this way and it’s less tough, but what do I know? If your dough is sticking and tearing, all I know if you need more flour, and I can’t see where you add it, much like the recipe won’t judge you for your actions.

Now roll the dough into a ball. Take a clean large bowl and pour in the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. A whole tablespoon here was overkill, but it felt very Italian, so I went with it. Then roll the dough ball in the oil so it’s coated in it. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until it doubles in size. I usually put it in the oven with the pilot light on and the door closed, but anywhere out of the way is fine. If it’s too warm the dough gets all soft and mushy, but if it’s too cold it gets a crust and dries out and doesn’t rise. I’ve had that problem with a lot of gluten-free bread, but all-purpose is pretty forgiving.

Now make your tomato sauce and prepare whatever toppings you want (grate cheese – real stuff, please. Kraft is not food).

Now the fun part! It’s 1 to 1 1/2 hours later and your dough has doubled, so take it out of the bowl onto the counter-top where you kneaded it oh-so-long ago, and punch it down.

Here is where Bonnie Stern and I disagree. In HeartSmart: The Best of HeartSmart Cooking, she has this crazy idea of making 8 small, individual pizzas. I made one giant one. I tried making two decent-sized ones but the dough kept shrinking back together. So I gave it and just stretched it with my hands to a decent size. You can try throwing it, but it might tear. You can try rolling it but it might be kind of sticky and uncooperative (flour the rolling pin or wine bottle! I’ve even used a bottle of olive oil as a rolling pin before. fortunately I now have a rolling pin) so just do whatever you have a to do to stretch it into a large circle. You can place it on a hot pizza stone but who under the age of “not married” has one of those? I swear bridal registries are the most ridiculous things. So place it on a large circular pan (or rectangular pan, and re-shape your pizza accordingly) or aluminum, cheap baking sheet if you have one. Otherwise, don’t worry about it. (You can put the dough in the oven or on the grill as it is, but it might be less cooperative and you might burn yourself more easily.)

Brush the dough with a little bit of olive oil (1 tsp is enough) and either grill it for 1-2 minutes per side, or bake it in a preheated 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 8 minutes. You don’t want it to really brown and cook completely, but otherwise it will be soft when you bake it with the toppings and will never crisp up to pizza perfection.

While the dough is baking get your pepperoni, sauce, and cheese ready. you can do other toppings, but this is the classic.

Take the dough out of the oven, put down a layer of tomato sauce (more or less, according to your tastes), and place the pepperoni around. Doesn’t matter where you put them as long as you’re happy with them. You don’t need to spread them evenly if you want more on some slices and less on others. then sprinkle or dump on the cheese. Again, however much you want. Mine oozed grease in the oven it was so laden with the organic mozzarella I’d bought.

Now get it back into the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese bubbles and the crust is browned. If the crust isn’t browning well and the cheese isn’t melting fast enough for you, you can stick the pizza up under the broiler, but only do this is you have an oven rack set up high enough already. By the time you remove and replace an oven rack up that high you’ll lose a lot of the heat from your oven. So plan to have to maybe broil in advance, or just leave the pizza a little longer and relax about the cheese not melting that quickly.

It’ll get there. This is Italian. This is sort of slow food. Have a glass of Italian red. Relax.