It’s all in the dough
I have experimented with pizza dough all winter and this is the winner! It will make your kitchen smell like your favorite sub shop that we all crave. Now anyone who knows me knows that I live a mostly Keto lifestyle and here is why. This winter we went on a trip, and I totally fell off the keto train. It was nice just to eat anything and everything I wanted and when we got back home it was defiantly less expensive as we live next to a tiny town who’s only grocery/connivence/liquor store has very few fresh veggies and usually only processed meat. I started making bread, pasta and everything in between from scratch and fell in love with it. My husband was so happy he even brought home a pasta sheeter and stand mixer for me! Well, my headaches started getting worse and then the migraines were back, so I am back to the Keto lifestyle, headache free but my love for dough making is still going strong and since pizza and calzones are so easy for my husband to take to work for meals the journey continues. So here is my recipe.
Makes 2-16′ pizzas or 8 large calzones
Ingredients
Seasoning mix
- 1 tbsp oregano
- 1 1/2 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp dried parsley
- 2 tbsp parmesan cheese
Dough
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp quick active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp salt
- 13 oz warm water (100-110 degrees F)
-Mix your seasonings together and set aside
-dissolve the salt in the warm water and pour the bowl of your stand mixer, add in the yeast and sugar and let sit for 5 minutes. If you yeast isn’t foamy after five min it is either old or your water was too hot or too cold. dump and try again.
-set your mixer to the lowest speed and fold in the flour and two tablespoons of the seasoning mixture let it go for ten minutes.
-remove dough from the mixer onto a floured surface and knead for 2 minutes forming it into a large dough ball.
-At this point you can place the ball in a large bowl, drizzle with olive oil before covering and place in the fridge overnight up to 72 hours (the longer the rest the deeper the flavor) take it out of the fridge 3 hours before you want to bake it for the final rise. If you’re like me and you want it for supper the same night, I cut it two making two dough balls transfer each ball to an olive oil lined bowl drizzle with a little more and let it rest and rise on the counter out of direct light for the day (I make my dough in the morning)
-pre heat your oven to 425 – dust a surface with flour and start forming your pizza. It should be very easy to stretch. Start by working the dough from the center out with your fingertips then let it rest over your knuckles allowing gravity to do the work while rotating it in a circle. Place it back down onto your cornmeal dusted pizza pan (makes it not stick) and stretch till you are happy with the shape. If it rips just pinch it back together. Top with your favorite toppings and bake 20-30 minutes (until the bottom is golden).
-as you can see in the pics, if you want to make calzones cut ready dough into 8 balls stretch out, fill and form the calzone shape and bake the same.
The two pizzas below are spicy dill pickle and street corn with bacon, I don’t make anything “normal” lol
Have fun with the whole process! If it takes you a few tries that is totally fine, cooking is like art, the more you do it the better you get.
**Voting for Favorite Chef starts March 20th! Please vote for me! http://favechef.com/2024/pam-stemmer
