October DB Challenge: Pizza

Pizza? Really? But I already had a recipe for pizza dough that I liked! And here people have to go, giving me choices. That's not very nice. Not only that, I had to decide what went on the pizza too! And attempt to toss it! Umm... yeah, I'll get right on that one... The boyfriend did get a kick out of imagining all sorts of funny shots we could get - pizza dough on the ceiling, on his face, with my fist through the middle of it, yada yada yada. Mostly, I think he just wanted to see me make a fool of myself :)


In the end though, it wasn't too daring of a challenge for me. The dough came together easy peasy and was seriously the softest, most satiny dough I've ever worked with. Amazing texture, almost like a little pillow. I froze half of the 6 dough balls (yay impromptu pizza nights!) and saved three to take over to a friend's house so we could make pizza for dinner one Saturday night. Putting our heads together, we came up with pizza topping ideas:

Barbecue chicken with cheddar
Mushroom & onion with provolone/mozzarella blend
Mushroom & onion & chicken with provolone / mozzarella blend

Now, you won't really see photos of those (although I was told the barbecue chicken one was delicious) because, well... I forgot my camera. So we used their camera but didn't take pictures of anything but the tossing step. So I had to defrost one of those dough balls and make another pizza - darn! I decided to make it a bit more interesting and to my taste (the boyfriend's first suggestion for toppings was pepperoni - hmph). And that's how you get the pizza that's in front of you: Spinach, tomato, & goat cheese



It was amazing, although I made a couple notes for when I try this again - I should have used more spinach, since my single layer wilted down to almost nothing (or maybe defrosted frozen spinach, so I don't have to worry about the wilt factor). Also, after I chopped the tomatoes, I squeezed them gently to get rid of seeds and extra juice, and that was a smart move. It could have ended up quite soggy otherwise. The only real problem was with the goat cheese. I put it on top before baking, and it dried out and lost a lot of its tangy flavor, so I'll just crumble it on top after baking next time. Also, since I have a gas range and oven, I had to stick my pizza under the broiler to really brown up the crust. Not a real problem, but it was necessary for a prettier pizza :)


This probably won't take over as my favorite pizza crust though, for several reasons. I like that my other recipe doesn't require kneading at all, only 10-12 hrs in the fridge, and makes just enough for two individual pizzas. It's crispier rather than bready, and I had better luck avoiding soggy crusts with that recipe. That's not to say my remaining two dough balls won't get used - they definitely will. This was a wonderful recipe, I had fun attempting to toss the dough (although I practically just picked it up and gravity stretched it out for me!), and it was nice to have so much freedom with toppings. Thanks go to Rosa of Rosa's Yummy Yums for picking this, a tribute to Sher of What did you eat?, and go check out the other DB'ers awesome pizzas - maybe their tossing pics turned out better than mine :)