So here’s a pretty tasty pizza dough that I really like to use a lot when home cooking. As for those of us with crohn’s we all have different things that set us off, I personally do really well with anything except vegetables (excluding a few) now some of you can deal with spices easier than others do. So you can all reason with yourselves before baking on what toppings to use, I’m just giving you a suggestion as to what I prefer on mine. Now with any dough / baked good usually requires a lot of prep time and clean up (if your like me you make the dough with your hands and disregard the mixers) so if your feeling under the weather, or don’t want to push yourself to hard I suggest using electric mixers or having a buddy/spouse/significant other on hand to help you out or clean up.
Now for the dough’s ingredients:
3 Cups Flour
- Two White Flour, One Wheat. (depends on if you like wheat dough or not)
1 Cup of Milk
- If your lactose intolerant sub with warm water.
1/2 stick of unsalted butter
- can sub with margarine.
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of kosher salt (or sea salt)
1~ tablespoon of basil
1~ tablespoon of oregano
2 teaspoons of black pepper
1 teaspoon of white pepper
And the dough’s Directions:
Heat the cup of milk to a comfortable temperature in a two cup measuring glass (I prefer to use Pyrex containers for this), mix in the brown sugar till all the granules have dissolved at this time add the yeast into the mixture and let stand for 10 minutes or until it produces a cream. During this time take out a large mixing bowl (preferably a glass one) and sift the flour into it, now add in the salt, basil, oregano, black pepper and white pepper. Take a large wooden spoon and stir the flour mixture till it is evenly distributed throughout the mix. Make a depression in the flour mix and pour the yeast mixture into it and turn the outside edges of the mixing bowl into it, melt the butter and add to the dough mixture as well, continue mixing dough until it is smooth, oil the dough with any remaining butter. Leave to stand in a warm place for an hour, while doing this I suggest keeping saran wrap and a small warm hand towel over the bowl to keep it warm.
When the dough has at least doubled in size, punch down and separate into two halves. Remove the halves onto a lightly floured surface and kneed into balls, take a rolling pin and turn the dough balls over till you have two identical pizza rounds (I prefer to keep them on the thinner side as the dough does rise). **At this time you can precook on a pizza stone which has been dusted with corn meal or flour so that it doesn’t stick. Heat to 350-375 degrees Fahrenheit for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned (test center of dough with toothpick to make sure it has been cooked through, I also suggest keeping an eye on it the first few times you do this as not to prematurely burn your crust) for later use or to make a firmer crust if you prefer. **Now if you want to you can skip the above mentioned precook and just go straight to saucing the dough up and putting toppings on it in which case I would suggest heating the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for 15 minutes, watch closely and add time as necessary to cook thoroughly, I use a gas stove at home so temperature variations and times may require some tweaking (note: I am also cooking at 1300 foot above sea level so if you live at sea level or higher consult a cook book on proportional differences in ingredients)
Now it’s time for Roasted Garlic
if your a big fan of garlic like I am than this is something you’ll want to use as a topic or as something to add into the sauce. Either way it’ll be fantastically delicious.
Ingredients:
1 head of garlic
and some olive oil
pinch of sea salt
Directions:
Remove the individual cloves of garlic from the bulb and place in a old pie tin or foil with edged wrapped upward. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Cook at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. If done properly the garlic will be soft and malleable, squeeze into pizza sauce or use as topping of pizza.
Sauces and Toppings
So as described above you can use the roasted garlic as a very delicious to either the sauce or as a topping, but anyways I digress onto the sauces. Normally I like to make a homemade sauce but store bought ones can be just as good too if you doll them up with some of your own additions, such as oregano, basil, garlic, onion, etc. Sadly I don’t have a detailed (measured) recipe for sauce and will have to hammer one out for a future article to come back and finish this one up.
As for toppings we all know the basics, pepperoni, mushrooms, cheeses, peppers, onions, sausage, etc.
Personally if your like me than your kind of a whore for the meat pizza and want things like sausage, pepperoni, ham, bacon, etc on it as well as something downright delicious like roasted garlic.
As for the cheeses I like to go with a good helping of Mild Cheddar, Fresh Mozzarella, Asiago, Parmesan, and some Pepper Jack.
The pizza depicted here is topped with Pepperoni, Sausage, Roasted Garlic, and several Basil Leafs.
*article by Mart-Kos Caoilte*