Saturday, June 18, 2011

Yeasted Pizza Dough

My husband and I used to make a lot of pizza.  We'd have pizza at least once a week.  We got out of it for awhile, but now the pizza making bug has struck again.  I always used to buy a crust kit like Jiffy or the Hy-vee brand.  These kits made pretty good crusts, but I knew I could make something better.  Plus, it was a little annoying that I couldn't whip up pizza anytime I wanted just because I may not have a crust kit in the house.  I decided I was going to make my own crust.  I buy bulk yeast, so I always have it in the house.  The other ingredients are just flour, olive oil, water, sugar, and salt.  These items are also staples, so I can have pizza crust anytime I want.  I used the recipe from  Vegan with a Vengeance, which is a great book whether you're a vegan or not (I would recommend any of Isa's books.  She's a genius!)  It was a little time consuming, but I know I'm making pizza next week, so I will make the dough ahead of time and freeze it.  For my first attempt the dough came out great!  I kneaded it by hand for the full 10 minutes the recipe suggests, and I now know that women who work with dough must have extremely strong forearms.  I was amazing by how soft the dough became the longer I kneaded.  I really need to invest in a pizza stone to get a consistently better crust, but this was great.  

Next week when I make this crust I will add in a little chopped garlic and some herbs and/or lemon zest during the final knead.  The pizza you see below was packed with veggies and cheeses.  It had green onions, yellow bell peppers, tomatoes, black olives, cilantro, mushrooms, mozzarella, and goat cheese.  Go make your own crust.  


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