Ok, so I’ve got this really cool bread making machine that only has two functions that I know of. It makes pizza dough and bannana bread. That’s fine because I really love warm bannana bread. But I don’t have a good recipe for pizza dough. And I really find that to be a great shame. No matter what I do I can’t get my dough to taste as good as any of ye local pizza joints.
Anyone have any good pizza dough recipes they’d be willing to share with me?
Marc
Yup, but I developed it with a big Kitchen Aid mixer. Not sure how well it will translate to your bread machine.
Two points:
Use bread flour.
Use lots of yeast.
http://jburtner.tripod.com/pizzadough.html
You may want to check out Alton Brown’s take on pizza dough here: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season3/PizzaTranscript.htm The man knows food, and knows how to explain the science of food to laymen.
Yes:
#1) Get a pizza stone. It’s 20-some bucks and will make ANY pizza dough taste better. Also get a pizza peel (a shovel shaped thing used to get the pizza in and out of the oven.
#2) The pizza crust recipe:
1 pkg (2 1/2 tsp) yeast
3 1/2 C normal flour
1/4 c Vital Wheat Gluten flour (found in health food stores, and better supermarkets everywhere. And if you’re in a high altitude, it’ll make ALL your bread work better. This helps to give the chewy texture to the crust)
2 C Selmolina Flour
1/4 cup hot water (about 108 degrees
1 1/2 cups icy-cold water (trust me on this)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 Tblsp olive oil
1-2 Tblsp minced fresh rosemary if desired.
Mix the Hot Water, Sugar and Yeast in the bottom of the bread machine. Let it get all bubbly (about 5 minutes). Dump in EITHER the rest of the wet ingredients OR the rest of the dry ingredients (depending on what your bread-machine recommends). When you put in the dry ingredients, put the Vital Wheat Gluten Flour first, the salt second, then the other flours. Let the machine mix for a few minutes. If it seems really wet, add more flour, way too dry, add more COLD water. This recipe is really forgiving.
Let it knead the hell out of the dough. When it’s done, pour a little more olive oil in a bowl. Form the dough into a ball, roll in the bowl so the whole dough is covered with olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temp until doubled (since you used COLD water, it’ll take longer than normal: about 1 1/2 hours. But the flavor and texture 'll be worth the wait.)
About 1/2 hour before the dough is done rising, put the pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven. Remove the top rack completely (it’ll make it easier to get the pizza in and out) Crank the temp on your oven as high as it’ll go. It still won’t be hot enough, but with the pizza stone, you can fake it.
When done DO NOT punch down the dough. Gently tear/cut the dough in half and start stretching one of the halves into a circle.
Sprinkle selmolina flour (or corn meal, if you have it) on the pizza peel. Put the dough on the peel. Make sure the dough has a rim and is more or less evenly flat. Let rise again for about 15 minutes. Jiggle the peel and make sure the dough slides around on the flour. If not, add more flour.
Spread with about 1/2 cup of sauce (don’t use heated sauce. If it’s not cold, your dough will get soggy), cheese and toppings of choice (don’t add to much or you’ll have a mess).
Jiggle the peel again and if the pizza still slides around like it’s on ball bearings, put the peel in the oven touching the back of the stone and with a short quick jerk, (like a magician yanking a tablecloth away) remove the peel Cook for about 8 minutes or so. Crust should be golden and cheese melted. Remove with peel and let sit for 3 or 4 minutes before eating (or the cheese’ll just pour off the pizza like water)
Eat first pizza and begin making the other one when done!
It’s more work to do it this way, but it’s worth it!
Fenris
Thanks Fenris, I’ll give it a try some time in the next week or so.
Marc
I use the pizza dough recipe at this site
http://breadworld.com/recipes/recipedetail.asp?id=31
But you could pretty much use any basic bread recipe for pizza dough. I use this one because a friend of mine gave me the bread machine recipe booklet that Fleischman puts out. Check out some of their other recipes–I use the French Bread one occasionally, and sometimes just get an urge to make something new. The whole list of bread machine recipes that are in the book are at
http://breadworld.com/recipes/bmother.asp?dough=mach
You must make a different kind of banana bread than I’m used to–I usually make a batter bread that doesn’t require any kneading. Recipe?
Here’s a simple one that works for me, and you don’t need no stinkin’ bread machine, just your hands. Yields enough dough for a thick 8x10 crust.
Put 1 1/3 cups tepid (hot tap) water in bowl and dissolve 1 package fast-rising yeast and a quarter teaspoon of salt in it. Then add a tablespoon of olive oil, a quarter cup of corn meal, and enough all-purpose flour to make a batter. Mix well with a whisk, then add more flour to make a dough. The total amount of flour should be about 3.5 cups. Knead well, let rest and rise under the bowl for an hour, then knead briefly again and make your crust. You can jazz it up by putting minced garlic, finely chopped herbs. etc. in it.