Happy birthday to my son! Time flies by so fast he is 11 already! Pizza is one of his favorite food (well, aside from mac and cheese and Korean chicken) so I will feature a time consuming but very delicious pizza crust recipe today.
I make pizza for lunch or dinner at least twice a month, so I have been able to try different recipes and tweak them to my family’s tastes. This is Vito Iacopelli’s recipe. He is a professional pizza guy, a pizzaiolo, I saw on youtube who was sharing how to make pizza dough for home use. I scaled down his recipe to make 2 big 14-inch pizzas or 3 smaller 12 inch ones. This is usually enough for my little family of 3 with leftovers for another meal.
I tried baking this crust with the Breville Pizzaiolo, the Napoli wood fire pizza oven, and the Mont Alpi pizza oven (which I modified by adding a thick layer of refractive cement on the interior). Although the Breville gave the best result the easiest way (plug in, dial the temp and that’s it!), I kept the modified Mont Alpi as the Breville is a HUGE, single use appliance that I can not store easily. The Napoli cannot keep the wood burning properly, but I think if I buy the gas attachment it would be easier to use and keep a constant temperature. The Mont Alpi is an outdoor appliance so I just leave it in our outdoor barbeque area.
It takes a day to make this so plan ahead. You could also place it in the refrigerator for the 6-8 hour rest and use it with in 2 days. It is worth it though as the crust is really delicious and perfect for any topping you’d like to put on it!
Ingredients:
333 grams water
1.7 grams yeast
3.3 grams honey
8.3 grams salt
16.7 grams olive oil
500 grams 00 flour or all purpose flour
Place water and yeast in a bowl. Mix. Add honey and mix well. Add 350 grams flour and mix well for a couple of minutes. Cover with a dishcloth. Leave for about 1 hour.
Add the rest of the flour, salt, and olive oil. Form into a ball and knead for about 5 minutes. Shape into a ball. Place in a greased bowl, turn dough over, cover with plastic wrap and let rise 1 hour.
Form into 2 balls and place in a floured pan. Flour tops and cover with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with non stick spray, then cover with a dish cloth. Let rest 6-8 hours.
Remove covers and drop in a bowl of flour. Take dough out and shape into circle, 14 inches in diameter. Place in a pizza pan or peel and repeat with the other half.
Brush olive oil on edges. Spread some tomato/pizza sauce on top, bake in 500F oven for 5 minutes. Top with desired toppings (mozzarella and pepperoni are my family’s favorites) and bake 10-15 minutes more.
