This pizza will make you very happy
Indeed, it's Friday again. This has been a very up and down week, but I'm going to try to enjoy the ups right now: I got two emails yesterday that made me happy; I had a very lovely Zoom reunion with some college friends I hadn't seen in a long time on Monday and it felt like we started up again like it hadn't been years since some of us had seen each other; I ordered another pair of the sandals I've been wearing basically every day for the past two months and I'm very excited for them to get here; I made an excellent cake for my mom last weekend and I just bought a lot of butter so I can make it again and again; I got takeout from my favorite restaurant the other day and also got takeout cocktails (the best silver lining of this whole situation is all of the restaurants here selling takeout cocktails!); I saw a lot of really cute baby pictures this week; Party of Two comes out in less than six weeks and I'm excited and terrified; I'm healthy, my family is healthy.
Here's another thing I got recently that made me happy: spices! I love Oaktown Spice Shop, a small business in the Bay Area, owned by lovely people, and with really excellent and good value spices. I ordered a bunch of spices from them a few weeks back, and my order came last week and I posted a picture on Instagram, and there was such a fun conversation about spices in the comments!
I said this a few weeks back, but here's a reminder that I have a shop on Bookshop, which is a newish ecommerce site for books, which gives back to independent bookstores. If you have a great independent bookstore near you, order from them directly! Many of them are still taking orders and shipping, or doing curbside delivery depending on the location. But if you don't, Bookshop is great. In my shop I've mostly collected lists of book recommendations I've made here and elsewhere, including a list of romance recs that I started the other night because someone asked me for recs on Instagram, but it's very incomplete, I'm still adding to it! As an affiliate, I make a small amount if you buy stuff from my store; I'll donate anything I make from Bookshop to my local food bank.
I have recommended the King Arthur Flour website many times during this crisis and that's because it's great -- I've never tried a recipe from them that didn't work, there are so many good videos and bits of advice, and the instructions are all very clear. So I should have known that their Crispy Cheesy Pan Pizza would be excellent, but you guys, it's just SO GOOD. Every time I make it, I can't wait to make it again, it's absurd how easy it is (even though the instructions are long, I promise, it's very easy!), it's very fun to make, and it just puts a big grin on my face, and right now, we all need more things in our lives that put big grins on our faces.
Crispy Cheesy Pan Pizza
Ingredients
Crust:
2 cups (240 grams) all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant or dry active yeast
3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon olive oil (for the dough) and 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil (for the pan)
Topping:
6-8 ounces mozzerella, grated (see note)
1/3 to 1/2 cup tomato sauce or pizza sauce
Any other toppings you want: pepperoni, grated cheese, mushrooms (cook them in advance), other vegetables (ditto), herbs, etc.
Put the flour, salt, yeast, water, and the 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a big bowl, and stir together until it's a sticky mass of dough with no dry patches of flour (I had to add a little extra water to get there the second time I made this). The instructions tell you how long to do this in a stand mixer, but you just have to stir it for about a minute by hand, so that's what I always do instead of using my stand mixer for this. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and cover the bowl for five minutes.
After five minutes, uncover the bowl and reach a bowl scraper or your hand (wet it a little first) down under the dough and stretch the bottom of the dough up and over the top; rotate the bowl and do this three more times from all four sides. (Click on the KAF recipe above, they have a great gif to show you just how to do this). Cover the bowl again, wait five minutes, and then repeat -- you're going to do the five minute rest plus the stretching from all sides four times total. Then once you've finished the fourth time, cover the bowl again and let the dough rest for forty minutes at room temperature. Now put the dough in the fridge. (At this point, I transfer the dough to my two quart measuring cup, which I always use for letting dough rise because it has measurements on the sides so it's easy to know if it's doubled in size, and it's tall and narrow and so fits easily in my fridge). Let the dough rise for at least 12 hours, but it can go up to 72 hours, so there's lots of flexibility here.
About three hours before you want to eat, pour 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil into a well seasoned cast iron skillet and smear the oil all around so the bottom and sides are mostly covered. Okay so, a note about pans! The recipe says to make this in a cast iron skillet that's 9 inches across the bottom, and that's what I did the first time, and it was great! And then an instagram commenter told me she tried it in a bigger pan and liked it even better, so last night I tried it in my 12 inch skillet, and I agree that I liked it even better! The dough was slightly less thick but there was more pizza circumference. However, if you do make it in a bigger pan, you're going to need more cheese than the recipe calls for to cover all of the dough properly, so just plan for that. They also say that you can also use a ten inch cake pan or 9 inch square pan (I want to try this with doubling the dough recipe and making it on a big rimmed cookie sheet too, but have not tried that yet so cannot testify if it works or not).
Take the dough out of the fridge and turn it out into the pan. Flatten it more or less, then turn it over so both sides of the dough are coated with oil. Now press the dough to the edges of the pan, and dimple it with your fingers as you press (do this sort of in the way you dimple the focaccia in the Fat episode of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat). If the dough shrinks back some, or doesn't reach to the edges of the pan, just cover it and come back to it in 15 minutes and do the dimpling and pressing again (I didn't have to do the 15 minute return the first time I made it, but I did the second time when I did it in the bigger pan).
Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise for 2 hours at room temperature. The dough is soft and pillowy and jiggly once it's fully risen, which is just delightful.
About 30 minutes before baking, put an oven rack towards the bottom of your oven, and one on the top rack (as long as your pan will fit on your top rack). Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
When you're ready to bake, sprinkle most of your cheese over the entire crust, and get it to the edges. Then drizzle your sauce evenly over the cheese (their instructions say dollop, it worked better for me when I drizzled, either way is good). If you have any other toppings, put them on now! Then put the rest of your cheese on top.
Bake on the bottom rack of the oven for 18-20 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling. If you want a darker bottom crust, leave it on the bottom of the oven for 2-4 more minutes; if you want a crunchier top crust, move it to the top rack of the oven for 2-4 more minutes.
When it's done, take the pan out of the oven (carefully, so as not to burn yourself like I did last night) and run a thin spatula or small knife around the edges of the pizza so the cheese doesn't stick to the pan. Let it cool in the pan for no more than a minute or two, then slide a spatula under the pizza and lift it out of the pan and onto a cooling rack or cutting board (this is much easier than it sounds, it lifts right out). Cut into wedges (I used my kitchen shears to do this, it's easier than a knife), and enjoy!
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Jasmine
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Buy The Wedding Date, The Proposal, The Wedding Party and Royal Holiday.
And preorder Party of Two!