Pizza! Part 1



So, basically a common theme among friends is that no one quite knows how to make homemade pizza. Here's a little secret, it's super easy, it's super cheap and it's actually pretty quick. The whole process takes about 24 hours, but it is really only about 15-20 minutes worth of work. The following recipe is provided by Peter Reinhart, a bread teacher at Johnson and Wales. I'll give you three measurements for each ingredient; volume, weight in ounces and weight in grams. I recommend weight in grams because it is the most accurate however you can "kind of" get away with volume.

Dough:
4.5 Unbleached Bread Flour, chilled     (20.25 ounces or 574 grams)
1.75 t Kosher Salt                                (.44 ounces or 13 grams)
1 t Instant Yeast *see notes below*      (.11 ounces or 3 grams)
1.75 Cups Ice Water
.75 Cups Olive Oil                                (Optional)

Instant Yeast vs Active Dry vs Fresh Yeast
All three of these have different potency, meaning you need different amounts of each for the same rise. Instant yeast is sometimes called rapid rise. I recommend you get Instant SAF Yeast from Trader Joes or Whole Foods. If I recall correctly, the conversion is 100% - 40-50% - 33%   fresh - active dry - instant. This means that if a recipe calls for 10 ounces of fresh yeast you can use about 4.5 ounces of active yeast for the same rise or 3.3 ounces of instant for the same rise. Get it ?

Olive Oil or Canola Oil:
Oil, or fat basically, in a dough will cause it to be come more tender and chewy and less crisp. If you want a nice flat bread almost cracker crust no fat is your friend.

Building the Dough:
Combine the yeast, salt and flour in a work bowl, preferably a kitchen aid with the dough hook attachment. Mix on low speed until thoroughly combined.

Add the ice water and oil slowly. it may not take all of the water so put in about 85% and slowly add the rest as the dough calls for it. It should be slightly tacky and pull away from the walls of the bowl but ever so slightly stick to the bottom. Turn the speed up to medium and let it knead in the work bowl for 5-7 minutes. If you are doing it by hand combine all the ingredients and knead by hand for about 10 minutes on a floured work surface. Try not to over flour while working the dough by hand.

Remove the dough from the work bowl onto a floured surface and roughly shape into one piece. Weigh the dough and cut into whatever size you are looking for. I use 10 ounce portions for a home pizza stone size pizza. If you are making a pan pizza you will need to experiment a little. After cutting, perform the following:

This roughly shapes the dough into the correct size. After creating these shaped dough balls place them in a lightly oiled bowl top side down and swirl to coat, flip them over and coat the bottom and then cover with plastic wrap. Let these rest in a refrigerator over night. This entire process can take as little as 15 minutes.