Thursday, October 30, 2008

I use to buy dough from a local pizza shop. Not anymore…

The first time I tried the dough something just wasn’t right. To this day, I can’t figure out what went wrong. There were pea sized dry bits throughout the dough. The dough never developed enough to pass the windowpane test. I baked some of if off. It was bland cardboard with peas of hard uncooked dough. The birds wouldn’t even eat it.

The second attempt was beautiful dough. I found myself thinking about the first attempt as I added each ingredient. Did I use iced water first time or warm tap? Maybe I grabbed vinegar instead of olive oil. I got over it almost as soon as I started to knead.

Tossing – move away from the island and those low hanging lights. Instead of my pizza stone, I took an opportunity to try a trick from Alton. I used the drip pan of a terra cotta pot. This worked very well! It is cheaper than replacing my pizza stone when they break.

One pizza was sauced with a homemade tomato sauce, mushrooms, pepperoni and a mozzarella/cheddar mix. A second pizza was olive oil, arugula, prosciutto and shaved parmesan. A third pizza was made for a dessert (walnuts, gorgonzola and honey). The remaining dough was used for frozen pizzas.
Will I start making my own dough? Yes! Everything about the second attempt dough was better than the dough I purchase. It isn’t hard to pull together if I know a pizza day is coming up.

Thanks for motivating me to try it myself.

- Ginny

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