Breakfast Pizza, Hot from the Oven!

Breakfast Pizza,

Hot from the Oven!

# 68 - 2008

I can’t think of a better challenge for a Daring Baker: a recipe to follow to the letter and still all the freedom to be creative to the ends of the earth! People, I know the sun will come up today and I know you are going to find a mind blowing, mind boggling wealth of pizza toppings from around the globe.

Rosa is our oh so gracious hostess this month from her blog Rosa’s Yummy Yums. There you’ll find the recipe for the crust and two toppings (I’ll have to try her idea for the Fig, Walnut & Cream Cheese topping, although I might only be able to find brie cheese).

Now, Rosa ask us to do a film of ourself tossing the pizza dough. Well, no I wasn’t able to pull that off. However, one reason I wasn’t able to pull that off was because this was so easy to do it only took four twists of the wrist and I had crust. I mean pretty much round perfect, thin crust. Four - one - two - three - four - small little twists of my wrist and BANG I had professional Pizza crust on my counter! Now how likely is that?

And you’re ready to rock with a blank slate! Even without a video, you should be impressed. I was blown away.

The commentary at the beginning of the recipe discusses using high protein/gluten bread flour and all-purpose flours. The conclusion was that all-purpose in the US is most like the softer wheat flours in Italy and so might be more authentic. The interesting part to me was the suggestion that if all-purpose flour was used to entirely leave out the oil. The amount of oil in the recipe is not nominal in my mind, a quarter cup of oil, at 9.9% the weight of the total flour it’s a significant ingredient. There is no oil in an Italian regulation Neapolitan pizza, it’s against the law! Reinhart suggests the bread flour is easier (given adequate resting times) to work with than the AP(all-purpose) flour but needs the oil to tenderize it.

I used AP flour and no oil. Perhaps you can see here I came very close to the dough tearing. It’s why I tell you this was so easy and only took four small twists of the wrist with the dough on my fist and I got a beautiful round of pizza crust.

I think we’re going to see today, you can put just about anything on a pizza crust.

One of the most beautiful parts of this recipe is that the dough is mixed and divided into 6 dough balls, stored in the refrigerator on a sheet pan in plastic bag the day before you want the pizza and is then ready for 5 days. I call that ready to go Pizza!

Take the dough ball(s) out 2 hours before shaping and topping the pizza. What did I put on my crust?

Here’s what I assembled to put on my crust starting top left - Manchego Cheese, caramelized onions, fresh Hatch Chili Peppers, 3 strips bacon mixed with Hot Italian chicken sausage, sauteed mushrooms, tomato sauce, and fresh basil - because this is what I found ready to go in the fridge except for the basil which was from the garden. Two guides I try to follow with pizza assembly: keep things simple two or three things and cheese AND minimum sauce or none. If there’d have been any good fresh tomatoes on my counter there’d have been no sauce on any of my pizzas.
Click photo above for slide show.

But truly what I loved the best was my fresh overs Breakfast Pizza. After lunch with my sister, I took home some left over creamed spinach from a wonderful Mexican restaurant.

Just as I’m about to slide this onto the hot pizza stone, I’m thinking “Clean up egg off pizza stone, don’t do it.” OK, then what do I do. Take it off. Tip the peel, egg slides over spinach, crust, peel into bowl I’m holding. Wooooo, here comes the crust, SAVE tilt before it goes into the bowl with the egg.

Into the oven for five minutes then put egg onto middle and put back into 550° oven for 3 minutes - next time: without egg for 6 minutes and 2 with the egg, then I think it’ll be runny!

This is by far and away the thinnest and best pizza dough I’ve ever done and I’ve done many.

Enjoy the Daring Bakers serving pizzas today.

DB Challenge: Pizza Crust

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

This is pizza dough at the ready!

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