Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Fresh Tomato Pizza with Whole Wheat Crust



This is most definitely the best pizza I've ever made. The crust is just phenomenal--crispy and super flavorful. The dough recipe comes from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. It's not a difficult recipe to make, but it is lengthy and takes at least a whole day as there is lots of resting involved. I was not looking forward to typing out the whole recipe, but thankfully, I found it on a fantastic bread making blog, Bread Experience.com.

The recipe gives you the option to use either 100% whole wheat flour, or 50% whole wheat and 50% white bread flour. I decided to use a combination of flours since though I love the taste of whole wheat, I really like the resiliency and high gluten content of bread flour--plus I was running low on whole wheat flour. I made the "soaker" with all whole wheat, and the "biga" with some whole wheat and some white flour (I'm guessing 50-50).

I found that the finished dough is really easy to shape--surprisingly so. You want to make your crust as thin as you can possibly get it to ensure that it bakes up nice and crispy. The edges of my pizza are puffed, but the middle part is actually as thin as a cracker. You want to go easy on the toppings. The crust has so much flavor and character that you don't want to lose that by piling on a ton of toppings. I used just a couple ounces of cheese on each pizza (the recipe makes six individual pizzas). Instead of sauce I used thinly sliced roma tomatoes, and topped those with a mix of mozzarella and Parmigiana Reggiano. If at all possible, cook this on a pizza stone as it makes a big difference in the texture of the crust. Plus, it gives the pizza a somewhat smoky taste.

This recipe is the closest I've come to making pizzas that taste like those we've had in Italy. It is so good, much better than any of our local pizza places. Though the recipe looks daunting, it's not any more difficult than making a basic bread recipe. Give it a try, this is some crazy-good pizza.


7 comments:

  1. I am actually going to start making my own pizza crust and make homemade pizza instead of buying the frozen kind anymore but this looks like too much work. I think I will have to start with something easier and work up to this. Glad you enjoyed it so much!

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  2. Yummy!! Thanks for sharing, sounds like a really good one! Peace, Stephanie

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  3. What a gorgeous pizza! Looks yummy.

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  4. Yum! I usually make quick pizza crust, but after that review, I'm going to try this. I'm glad you were able to link to the recipe online!

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  5. I am so drooling over my keyboard right now. I usually make a quickie crust for pizza, but I am going to explore this one - soon!

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  6. I adore PR's pizza dough recipes!

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