Butter Parmesan Pizza Crustdough Recipes

Steps:

• Combine the flour and salt in your largest mixing bowl. In another mixing bowl, combine the water, butter, olive oil and yeast. Mix well.
• Use a rubber spatula to create a well in the center on the flour mixture, and add to it the liquid from the other bowl, stirring with the spatula and scraping down the sides of the bowl to bring everything together. Mix it all together until it is a large, shaggy ball of wet dough, cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit for 30 minutes.
• Uncover the dough and, with floured hands, knead it until it is uniformly smooth and sticky, approximately 3 to 5 minutes. Move the dough ball into a clean mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 3 to 5 hours at room temperature, then refrigerate, at least 6 hours and up to 24.
• The morning you want to make the pizzas, remove the dough from the refrigerator, divide into 3 chunks of equal size (about 600 grams each) and shape them into oblong balls. Use olive oil to grease three 10-inch cast-iron skillets, 8-inch-by-10-inch baking pans with high sides, 7-inch-by-11-inch glass baking dishes or some combination thereof, and place the balls into them. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature, 3 to 5 hours.

Steps:

• In a small bowl, mix warm water and 1 teaspoon sugar; add yeast and whisk until dissolved. Let stand until bubbles form on surface. In a large bowl, whisk 3 cups flour, salt, remaining 1 teaspoon sugar and, if desired, dried herbs. Make a well in center; add yeast mixture and oil. Stir until smooth. Add enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. , Turn onto a floured surface; knead, adding more flour to surface as needed until no longer sticky and dough is smooth and elastic, 6-8 minutes. Place in a large greased bowl; turn once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes; transfer bowl to refrigerator and chill overnight. Allow dough to come to room temperature, about 30 minutes, before rolling.

Steps:

• In large bowl, dissolve yeast and brown sugar in the water.
• Let sit for 10 minutes.
• Stir the salt, oil and italian seasoning into the yeast mixture.
• Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
• Turn dough out onto a clean, dry surface and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky.
• Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth.
• Let the dough double in size.
• Should take about 1/2 hour if in warm spot.
• Punch down and let rest a minute.
• Roll out, and prepare your favorite pizza.
• I use a pizza stone sprinkled with a bit of corn meal.
• Once I have the dough shaped I bake it plain for about 5-10 minutes, then pull out of oven and add toppings, just seems to work better every time.
• Bake in preheated oven 425 degrees until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Steps:

• Part 1, (A day ahead of time).
• 2 Cups hot water (tap hot, not heated. Mustn't be over about 120º or it will kill the yeast.
• 2 tsp yeast. This is a scant package. I buy yeast in bulk (like a pound) and keep it in the freezer, where it'll stay usable for a few years, so I can use 2 tsps at a time. A package is normally about 2-3/4 teaspoons (I think).
• ½ tsp barley malt. Barley malt is a thick, golden liquid sugar substitute. This tiny bit (it's not a mistake for ½ Tbsp) will add a lovely flavor to the crust. It should be available at your local 'health food' store. Keep it in the refrigerator so that it doesn't grow mold, unless you end up making pizza two or three times a week, which would use up one of those little jars of barley malt before mold becomes a worry. It's a pain to use when it's cold. I add it to the hot water first, which gets it off the spoon (a problem) and also brings down the temperature of the water a bit (for yeast safety).
• 2 Cups bread flour -- higher gluten (protein) content than regular all-purpose flour.
• 1 tsp gluten flour, which will raise the gluten content to the right point, making the crust really chewy. Also available at a 'health food' store.
• Mix the water, yeast, and barley malt together. Get that yeast dissolved by stirring fairly gently. Use a big mixing bowl, Let them sit while you get the flour and gluten flour out from wherever you keep them. You should be seeing the liquid getting a little frothy on top. Add in the flours and mix well, beating them a bit for a few minutes to incorporate air (possibly just to feel good about being actively involved and to get them well mixed). Cover with a damp kitchen cotton towel (not a fuzzy, which would be harder to clean if the sponge [which is what is in that bowl] rises enough to touch the towel), and let it sit out on the counter for a day. Don't refrigerate. This is a fermentation process, which develops and matures (great word) the dough, greatly enhancing the flavor. (I found out about this from a great little book of cookery essays, 'Home Cooking', by Laurie Colwin.) It also gives the yeast time to multiply, which is why we used so little yeast at the beginning. In fact, it will be even better if you let it sit for two days, which will make the fermentation more powerful and the dough even better tasting. If I were going to let it sit for two days rather than one I'd probably cut the yeast down to 1 teaspoons Check the sponge at the end of the first day, if you're going for two. If it looks like it's going to bubble up to the towel, you might stir in another half-cup of flour, to slow things down a bit. Also, get the towel damp again if it's dried out.
• Part 2, (A couple or three hours before supper.)
• Take the sponge, which should still be very wet and gooey, and stir in, mixing well (If you don't you'll end up with clumps of salt or Mrs. Dash in your crust, and you won't like that.):.
• 2 Tbsp (or so) olive oil.
• 2 Tbsp salt.
• 2 Tbsp (or so) dried basil.
• a couple of dashes of Mrs. Dash garlic un-salt.
• It's really nice if you have a powerful mixer. I found a Kitchen Aid at a second-hand store and that's what you need - if the mixer's not built for kneading bread dough you'll just burn it out, and doing it by hand is not so awful. People have done it and enjoyed doing it for thousands of years after all.
• Add flour in a half-cup or a cup at a time (add a cup until you see that you're getting close, then switch to the half-cup) until the dough pulls away cleanly from the mixing bowl or until it's not sticking to your hands too much. If you're using a mixer, then mix it at medium speed for about five minutes. If you're doing it by hand, turn out the dough onto a floured board and knead it until it feels like a baby's ass. All those books blather about feeling silky-smooth and so on, but they mean like a baby's ass. Cover with the moistened towel and let sit for about ½ hour. Divide the dough into two halves and re-cover one while you stretch the other. You could use a rolling pin, but that would squeeze too much gas out of the bubbles - better dough if you just stretch. I use 2 cookie sheets, and I oil them lightly with olive oil. I pull the dough until it's about the size and shape of the sheet. I then cover it with that towel and let it rest while I work on the second half of the dough. It needs to rest about 15 minutes. This lets the gluten relax. If it doesn't get that chance, the dough will contract for a while after you stretch it out to size. While this is happening, I oil the pans (cookie sheets in my case) lightly with olive oil.
• Stretching takes a bit of practice, but it's not like you have to toss it up, spinning, in the air. I gently flatten what was a ball of dough into a disk. "Gently?" Well, there are some times when you take dough and slam it down on a breadboard. This is not one of them. After I get it into a rough circle of about eight to ten inches in diameter. I hold the dough with both hands, holding it about an inch in from the circumference, with my hands at about 10:00 and 2:00, and I let the dough hang down, using its weight to stretch it. I move it around in its circle by moving my hands, bringing them together, changing grips and moving them apart. The point is to try to get the dough thinner and still maintain an even thickness. The edge remains thicker than the interior. You want that because the edge is where it's most likely to tear, until the center starts to get pretty thin. I keep checking the size against the size of the pan I'm going to use. When it's getting pretty close I put the dough on the pan and then turn it upside-down and put it back on the pan. This puts a light coating of oil on the top side of the dough. I then stretch the dough the rest of the way, pulling along the edges to thin them down a bit. I end up with edges that are somewhat thicker than the middle portion of the pizza, but I like that. I keep a small container (a bouillon cup or a pudding cup) of water nearby, and if the dough pulls apart I very lightly moisten the edges of the hole and glue them back together.
• Cover the crusts with that ol' moistened towel and let rise for ½ hour or so. Do what you do for topping, and put in a pre-heated 475º oven until crust at edge is golden brown. I use two racks and switch the pans up and down about half-way through. Cooking time is about 12 minutes, usually.
• If you want to make it even better, go to Home Depot and get two 12 x 12 Saltillo floor tiles. They are thick and unglazed, and you just lay one on each oven rack. They act as heat reservoirs. It will take about 45 minutes to heat the oven, and you can go through the torture of trying to bake the pizza on those tiles, but it's just about as good to put the pans on top of the tiles. The tiles will make sure that the oven stays hot while you put the pizzas in, and they will see to it that the bottom of the pizza gets its share of the heat. It really improves the pizza, but I have to admit that I don't bother, myself. I did it for a long time, but it got tiresome to find a place to put the tiles when they're not in the oven, and I found myself breaking them too often, moving them around. They're cheap enough, as opposed to the hoity-toity pizza stones they sell in "gourmet" stores, which are too thin to do any good.
• Mangia bene!

Steps:

• In a mixer combine the water and the yeast and allow the yeast to dissolve.
• Add the remaining ingredients except for the cornmeal and begin to mix the dough using a dough hook on low speed.
• Once a ball is formed mix on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes until the dough becomes elastic and smooth.
• Remove from the mixer and place in a bowl coated with olive oil. Allow the dough to rest for approximately 4 hours.
• Once the dough is rested, place on flat surface and dust with some flour.
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a deep baking dish or deep dish pizza pan, or cookie sheet for a thin crust pizza, oïl the bottom and sides of the pan with your fingers, spread in the cornmeal and spread the dough using your fingers at the bottom of the pan and make sure to have enough dough to come up the sides of the pan approximately 1/2-inch high.
• Begin by placing a layer of the mozzarella cheese on the bottom of the crust. Cheese goes first on a Chicago Style pizza. Add the tomato sauce and all of the toppings. Place in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes until golden and crispy. If you want a regular pizza, use toppings of your cjhoice in the order of your choice.
• Serve pizza straight from the oven to the table.
• Good cold for breakfast too!

Steps:

• Place blade insert into bowl of food processor. Add 1 cup flour. Sprinkle frozen butter cubes over flour. Add remaining 1 cup flour, sugar, and salt. Cover. Pulse in short bursts on and off until butter is broken into small pieces and looks crumbly, about 1 minute. Drizzle in ice water. Pulse with longer pulses, on and off, until mixture turns pale yellow and looks like crumbs, about 10 to 12 seconds. Scrape down sides with spatula. Pulse once or twice more.
• Transfer mixture onto a work surface. Bring pieces together to form a tight round ball of dough. Flatten slightly and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight before rolling out.

Steps:

• In large bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup lukewarm water.
• Add 1/4 cup flour and the sugar, stir together.
• Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.
• Stir the remaining 1 cup lukewarm water, 3 cups flour, the cornmeal and salt into the yeast mixture.
• Combine the butter and garlic; mix into the dough.
• Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until soft and elastic, 10-12 minutes.
• Lightly grease a large bowl, add the dough and turn to coat.
• Cover and set in a warm place until the dough is doubled in size, 1 hour.
• Punch dough down, then knead for 2-3 minutes.
• Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan, then press in dough to cover the bottom and 2 inches up the sides; let rise for 20 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
• Top the pizza dough with your favorite toppings.
• Lower the oven to 450 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.

Steps:

• In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. Store in the refrigerator.