Pizza Dough
- 5 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 2 1/4 cups warm water (80º)
- 1/4 cup Chilean Koroneiki or Northern EVOO
- 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- Makes 6 medium sized pizzas
- Toppings to consider: Pesto, pizza sauce, mozzarella, olive oil, Parmesan, thin sliced potatoes, peppers, olives, eggs, smoked salmon, squash, grilled chicken, or shrimp
Mix the granulated sugar in to 1/4 cup warm water and add the yeast. Allow to sit and “bloom”; for five minutes. In a large mixing bowl, or in the bowl of your stand mixer, or in your bread machine, add the flour. Mix the yeast mixture in to the remaining two cups of warm water along with the salt and olive oil. Add this to the flour in the bowl and slowly begin to mix it until it’s fully incorporated and smooth but slightly our flour. This slightly wet dough helps to create a beautiful cracker crisp crust if rolled very thin. If left thick, it will make a chewier crust. Cover the dough and allow to rise until doubled for approximately 1 1/2 hours in a warm location.
If using a pizza stone or steel, place your stone or steel into your gill and preheat to its highest possible temperature for at least 20 minutes. Divide the dough in to six portions. Keep the portions of dough not being rolled covered so that they don’t dry out. Roll out each portion to desired thickness. If you do not want to use cornmeal, you can roll out your pizza dough on to small sheets of parchment paper. The pizza and parchment will go directly on to your hot pizza stone for a minute, and then the parchment should be removed after a minute or so, when
the pizza dough is par-cooked which will allow it to slip off the paper easily, and directly on to the hot stone without sticking. You can also use cornmeal to help the pizza off the peel and on to the grill or stone.
If grilling your pizza directly on the grill without a stone, reduce the grill heat to medium and use corn meal to help slide the of your peel and directly on to a medium grill. Keep a close eye on the pizza as it will cook quickly whether set directly on the grill or a blazing hot pizza stone. Make one or two pizzas at a time rolling the dough out as necessary while keeping the rest of the dough covered.
