Pizza Party

Made a second round of pizza with the leftover dough and took a couple photos.

Bubbly, cheesy goodness.

Pizza dough recipe from Smitten Kitchen with a few technique alterations cause I'm lazy and used my food processor:

Pizza Dough

Smitten Kitchen claims this makes enough for one, small, thin crust pizza. Um. I beg to differ. I'd say it's closer to one medium, hand-tossed type crust pizza.

1 1/2 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast (I used quick rise yeast because I'm impatient)
1/2 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more, I did)
1 tablespoon olive oil

1. Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl (or dump in a food processor with the dough attachment and pulse a couple times to mix). Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can (I added liquids while running the processor and let it run until the dough was pulling away from the sides pretty cleanly, then just skipped to step 3). Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.

2. If you are finding this step difficult, one of the best tricks I picked up from my bread-making class is to simply pause. Leave the dough in a lightly-floured spot, put the empty bowl upside-down on top of it and come back in 2 to 5 minutes, at which point you will find the dough a lot more lovable.

3. Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl (a spritz of cooking spray perfectly does the trick) where you had mixed it — one-bowl recipe! — dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.

4. Dump it back on the floured counter (yup, I leave mine messy), and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes.

5. Sprinkle a pizza stone or baking sheet with cornmeal and preheat your oven to its top temperature. Roll out the pizza, toss on whatever topping and seasonings you like. (I always err on the side of skimpy with toppings so to not weight down the dough too much, or if I have multiple toppings, to keep them very thinly sliced.)

6. Bake it for about 10 minutes until it’s lightly blistered and impossible to resist.