It’s been far too long since I’ve made homemade pizza, so this past Sunday night dinner was an apt time to bring it back. Longtime readers I know I take pizza very seriously, so I headed out to buy unglazed clay tiles to serve as my pizza stone and a pizza peel. The clay tiles trick I learned from Alton Brown — at $1.20/tile, they are much cheaper than real stones and work just as fine (however, they are prone to crack, so pick up a few extra).
Where else would I go for pizza making advice other than Mary’s post on it, where she links to a great dough recipe. I also got the encouragement to use fontina cheese (a first for me), as well as a white pizza.
Tim came over with more ingredients, and Chrissy made it on her still-healing knee (she had round two of knee surgery on Friday) with her tank-like cupcake carrier (more on that later). Now let’s get to the main event!
I prepared seven balls of dough for the evening. Letting them rest now.
The ensemble cast
Tim listens to conversations around the kitchen
Chrissy takes a shot at forming a crust
Dan gets the hang of it pretty quickly
Each little pie is a fresh canvas
Our oven is wide enough to fit two tiles — quite handy.
This style of pizza makes for a different type of dinner — eat the pizzas when they come out of the oven (nice and hot!) while prepping the next pies. We composed a nice salad — eaten while standing and talking around the kitchen.
A white pizza — base made with olive oil, crushed minced garlic, and fresh herbs. Topped with slices of fontina, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese. Artichoke hearts for texture, and sprinkled with crushed walnuts (if you don’t have pine nuts on hand). And the finished result:
Mary’s crust recommendation was spot on — it’s easy to work with (with a roller), toasts well, and retains a satisfying chewiness. I didn’t have bread flour, so I did 3 cups of unbleached flour and 1 cup of white wheat. Other advice I’d give:
- bake right onto the tiles, and crank the oven as hot as it can go. The pies take ~7-8 minutes until done.
- pie diameter is key to a properly baked crust. It drives me batty to have the enter of a pizza soft and mushy. If you keep your pie diameter to twelve to fourteen inches, you can ensure the whole crust is evenly cooked. These came out really well — just hints of scorching, full GBD hue, with the cheese on top just starting to brown over in spots.
– sprinkle your pizza peel with corn meal to keep the friction low between the dough and the surface. As you’re topping your pie, give the peel a few quick thrusts to make sure the pizza is moving easily. You don’t want to be in front of the oven and suddenly realize your prepped pizza is stuck on the peel!
For dessert (can’t believe I don’t have any photos), Chrissy made Irish Carbomb Cupcakes. Yeah, you read that right. My sister Sapana has been making these with great success over in Chicago, inspired from this recipe from Annie’s Eats. This recipe has a chocolate cupcake base made with a splash of Guinness beer, and the buttercream icing is spiked with Bailey’s Irish cream. But what delightfully surprised everyone was the chocolate ganache filling also made with Bailey’s Irish cream that is tucked into the center of the cupcake. Chrissy did a phenomenal job with them! And hat tip to Sapana for the recipe.
More photos from the night are here.
