Quilt Pizza Recipes

Steps:

• For the pizza: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
• Lightly grease the backside of a rimmed baking sheet with olive oil and stretch the pizza dough over it (about 16 by 11 inches).
• Spread the pizza sauce on the dough and sprinkle the cheese on top.
• Divide the pizza into 8 to 12 squares, by lightly scoring the dough with a knife. "Decorate" each square with the suggested toppings.
• Brush the edges of the pizza with olive oil and bake until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted and bubbly, 18 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425°. Unroll pizza crust and press to fit into a greased 15x10x1-in. baking pan, pinching edges to form a rim. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned., Spread crust with pizza sauce; top with mozzarella cheese. Using ham strips, outline 12 sections. Arrange toppings of your choice in each section to create individual designs. Bake 10-15 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted.

Steps:

• Plan ahead. Make the dough at least a day before you intend to make pizza, to give it enough time to rise.Buy a food scale on which to weigh the ingredients for dough and toppings. It's a smart investment: In baking, weight is a more accurate measurement than volume.You will need a cooking surface. This could be a pizza stone or steel, or four to six unglazed quarry tiles measuring 6 inches by 6 inches from a building supply store. Whichever you use, heat in a very hot oven for at least an hour before cooking.
• Our best recipe for pizza dough is adapted from the one used at Roberta's, the pizza utopia in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It provides a delicate, extraordinarily flavorful dough that will last - and improve - in the refrigerator for up to a week. As ever with breads, rise time will depend on the temperature and humidity of your kitchen and refrigerator. But we generally allow it to go at least overnight. Those seeking gratification more quickly can turn to Mark Bittman's recipe for basic pizza dough, which rises in just a couple of hours.
• Allow for a minimum of three to four hours for your dough to rise. But planning further ahead pays dividends: You can store that dough in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook, which means any weeknight can be pizza night.We put our pizza dough in the refrigerator to rise, placing the balls of dough on a floured baking pan covered loosely with a clean, damp kitchen towel. The chill leads to a slow rise, so we generally allow it to go overnight, or for at least six to eight hours. For a faster rise, leave the dough out on a countertop, similarly covered. It should be ready - that is, roughly doubled in size - in three or four hours.Time imparts a marvelous tanginess to pizza dough, but it extracts a price as well. What you want to avoid is a skin developing on the dough. When the dough has risen, if you are not going to use it right away, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, or place it in a quart-size plastic bag. Pizza dough so wrapped will last in the refrigerator for three days or so. Another option is to freeze the dough using this incredibly easy freezer dough recipe. Make it, put it in the freezer in a freezer-safe plastic bag, and then move it to the refrigerator on the morning of the evening you want to cook.If you end up making pizza at least once a week, consider investing in a few pizza dough pans, available in restaurant supply stores.
• Shaping a pizza takes practice. The goal is to make a thin circle of dough, with a raised edge around circumference of the pie. Don't worry if that doesn't happen the first few times. Pizzas shaped like trapezoids or kites taste just as delicious.Working on a floured surface, with floured hands, softly pat down the risen ball of dough into a circle, rotating it as you do.Using the tips of your fingers, push down gently around the perimeter of the pie, rotating it as you do, to create the edge.Pick up the dough and lightly pass it back and forth between your palms, trying to rotate it each time you do, using gravity to help the dough stretch. At approximately 12 inches in diameter, the pizza is ready to go.Return the pizza to the floured surface, making sure that the side that you first pressed down upon remains facing upward, and gently slide the pie back and forth a few times to make sure that it does not stick. Add a little more flour to the surface beneath the pie if it does.Gently slide a lightly floured pizza peel beneath the pie, or place it carefully on a floured cutting board or the back of a baking pan. Make sure again that the dough can slide back and forth. If it does, the pie is certified for topping.
• The act of topping a pizza is a gentle one. Use a light touch. Above all, try not to overload the pie, particularly its center, which will lead to an undercooked crust. Two to three tablespoons of sauce are all you need, and perhaps a small drizzle of olive oil, accompanied by a couple of other toppings.Pizza sauce does not need to be cooked ahead of time, and is so simply prepared that there is no reason to use the store-bought variety. Instead, use a food processor to combine a can of whole, drained tomatoes with a splash of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.Spread the sauce out on the dough using the back of a spoon, stopping approximately 1/2 inch from the dough's edges. Do not use too much; two or three tablespoons is enough. Keep leftover sauce refrigerated.Mozzarella is the traditional pizza cheese, but depending on the sort of pie you are creating, really any good melting cheese will do: fontina, Cheddar, Colby, blue, provolone and smoked Gouda, among others, make for delicious pizzas.Meat on a pizza is an option for some. Sausage and meatballs are both traditional toppings and should be cooked beforehand. Pepperoni, ham and other cured meats do not need to be, though delicate sheets of air-dried beef or pork should perhaps go onto the pie midway through or at the end of the cooking process, lest they dry out in the heat.Anchovies are a marvelous addition to pizzas, and so are clams and mussels, even sheets of smoked salmon, particularly when paired with crème fraîche and capers.Making a fried egg breakfast pizza is not for freshman-class pizza makers. Sliding a pizza topped with a raw egg into a hot oven takes patience and practice. In the meantime, while your pizza is cooking, gently fry an egg in olive oil in a small skillet on the stove, and when the pizza is done, slide it gently on top of the pie.You can put anything on a pizza. The question is where, and when. Herbs can go below cheese to protect them from the heat of the oven, or onto the top of the pie when it's done. Pineapple can take heat like a fireman and can go on from the start, raw. Grapes can, too (a nice pairing for sausage). Mushrooms, though, should be cooked on the stovetop before you use them as a topping for pizza. Likewise peppers both red and green. (Thinly-sliced jalapeno pepper is an exception.) Potatoes can go on a pizza raw only if you're cooking in a very, very hot oven and you've sliced them very, very thinly - otherwise, parboil them before slicing and adding them to the top of a pie. Grilled asparagus is an excellent addition to a "white," or tomato-free pizza. We like thinly sliced Brussels sprouts, sometimes, on similar pies (pair with pancetta!), and leeks melted slowly over butter as well. As a rough guide: Precook anything that won't cook fast, or cut it so thinly that it will. Anything delicate, like a pile of arugula dressed simply in lemon juice and oil, can go on the pie when it's done, to cook gently in the pizza's residual heat.
• We cook most of our pizzas in the oven, on top of a stone or a steel. But you can bake pizza in a sheet pan as well, or grill it outdoors. You can even cook a pizza on a stovetop.To bake a pizza in an oven, you'll need either to do it on a stone or metal surface, or in a sheet pan. Either way, you should set the oven to its highest temperature and let it heat it for a full hour before you intend to cook.If you are using a pizza stone, steel or a set of tiles, begin by placing it on the middle rack of the oven before you turn it on, allowing it to preheat for a hour. When you're ready to cook, carefully place your shaped dough on a lightly floured pizza peel or cutting board, or on the back of a baking pan. Gently shake the peel, board or pan back and forth a few times to make sure the dough can move, then add your toppings.Pick up your pizza peel with the topped pie on top of it, and gently slide the pie onto the stone or tiles, starting at the back of the oven and working your way toward its front. Bake for about four to eight minutes, until the edges are a beautiful golden brown, and the sauce and cheese are bubbling nicely. Slide the peel back under the baked pizza to remove it from the oven, and then slide the pizza onto a cutting board, where it can be cut into slices.If you are using a sheet pan, lightly oil the pan, then stretch the risen dough into the shape of the pan, then top and place in the oven until golden brown and bubbling.Cooking a pizza on top of the stove is a simple way to get started in the pizza-making game, and a single ball of dough will yield two pan pizzas. Simply heat a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, then film it with olive oil. Take one half of a ball of risen pizza dough and press it out into a circle just smaller than the pan.When the oil shimmers, put the dough in the pan and adjust the heat so it browns evenly without burning. Prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork. Cook this round in the pan for a minute or so, then turn it over with the bottom is browned and cover with toppings. Either top the pan with a lid to melt the cheese or run it under a broiler to achieve the same result.Grilling pizza really means grilling one side of a flatbread over fire, then turning it over and topping it. And while you can certainly use our essential pizza dough recipe to do that, a sturdier dough recipe that is less prone to ripping will yield a better result.To cook a pizza on a grill requires some planning. You need to cook one side of the pizza before turning it over and topping it, and cooking the other side. So take time to assemble all the ingredients you'll need to make the pizzas beforehand.Prepare a hot fire; if your grill grate is clean, you shouldn't need to oil it. Slide the pizza dough from the peel onto the rack. After a few minutes, use tongs to lift the dough and check whether it's browning on the bottom. Watch closely so it doesn't burn. When it's nicely browned, use the tongs to flip the dough over, then brush it with olive oil and cover it with toppings. Place the lid on the grill for a few minutes more until the cheese is melted.

Steps:

• Unroll the crescent rolls and place in an ungreased 15x10x1-in. baking pan. Flatten dough to fit the pan, sealing seams and perforations. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool. , In a small bowl, beat the mayonnaise, cream cheese and dill until smooth; spread over crust. Top with the vegetables of your choice. Sprinkle with olives and cheeses; press lightly. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour. Cut into squares.

Steps:

• Put the flour, yeast and salt in a food processor. With the machine running, pour the oil through the feed tube, then add the water in a slow, steady stream. Continue to process for 2 to 3 minutes (the dough should form a rough ball and ride around in the processor). The finished dough should be soft, slightly sticky and elastic. If too dry, add a bit more water; if too wet, a tablespoon or so more flour.
• Lay a 12-inch-long piece of plastic wrap on a clean work surface. Work the dough into a rectangle on the plastic, about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide. Press your fingers into the top of the dough all over, making indentations as though it were a focaccia. Fold the left third of the dough over (as you would a letter) and repeat the indentations. Fold the right third over and make the indentations again. Cover the folded dough with plastic wrap and let rise for 20 minutes.
• Cut the dough in half, form each piece into a neat ball, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and transfer to the freezer. The morning before you want to make pizza, transfer the dough to the refrigerator to thaw.
• Bring the dough to room temperature, 15 to 20 minutes. Put a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 550 degrees. (If you don't have a stone, oil a rimmed baking sheet and set aside.) Dust a peel or the greased baking sheet generously with cornmeal. Working with the dough in your hands (not flat on a work surface), gently begin to stretch the dough into a circular shape, pressing your fist into the center of the dough and pulling at the edges with your other hand. With both hands, stretch the dough, being careful not to tear it. Working in a circular motion, pull the thicker edges of the dough outward, letting gravity help you. Continue to stretch the dough until it's relatively even in thickness (the edges will be thicker) and you have the size you want. Carefully lay it on the peel or baking sheet.
• Top the pizza as desired and either slide it off the peel and onto your heated stone, or place the baking sheet into the oven. Cook the pizza for 6 to 10 minutes or until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbling.

Steps:

• Combine water, yeast, and sugar in a bowl; let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add flour, salt, and oil, and stir until a ragged dough forms. Transfer to a lightly floured work surface.
• Knead with floured hands until dough is smooth, elastic, and tacky but no longer sticky, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl brushed with oil, turning dough to evenly coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in volume, 30 to 45 minutes.