Pizza Dough

After getting that awful pizza out last week (or was it week before last?), I declared that Friday is pizza day around here. If you don’t have a place in your area that sells excellent pizza, or if there is one, but the costs are outrageous, you really should try making one at home.

Pizza dough is about the easiest yeast type recipe you’ll ever make. I don’t even use the mixer. I simply stir it up by hand. It takes about 5 minutes to get it all mixed up, then at 5 minute intervals, four times, I stretch and turn it.

I’m a huge fan of Peter Reinhart. I have four or five of his books and took his Craftsy pizza and his American style “Neapolitan” dough is my favorite recipe. If you don’t have his books or his Craftsy class, you can find his Napoletano pizza crust recipe here. The only difference in that and the recipe I make is that the Neopolitan has a bit of sugar and olive oil.

Noreen has a pizza dough recipe that is very basic and my friend who told me about Noreen loves her pizza dough recipe.

Pizza Dough

After having slept so long yesterday, I had a burst of energy about 11:30 p.m. last night so I stirred up the pizza dough. Reinhart likes to leave the dough in the fridge overnight for a bit of a slow ferment. It isn’t necessary and I often don’t but since I had the urge to make the dough last night, that gave it time to spend the night in the fridge.

Pizza Dough

That is a beautiful ball of dough . . if I do say so myself.

There are some things I do in the kitchen and every time I do them, I say “Thank you, Vince, for letting me change out this countertop!

The Old Countertop

I was forever digging dough out of that grout. Those slate tiles were uneven and rough. I so disliked that countertop. Pizza making is a whole lot easier with solid countertops!