Grilled Pizza

I grilled my first pizza. Mmm! This white pizza had an oil-based sun-dried tomato sauce made by Beano's, fresh mushrooms, mozzarella and parmesan and slivered fresh basil on top. Delicious!

Pizza Dough
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 Tablespoon yeast
1 Tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour
olive oil
pizza toppings

Proof (prep) the yeast by combining the water, yeast and honey in a liquid measuring cup. Let this sit until the yeast begins to bubble. In a separate mixing bowl combine the flour and salt and add the dough hook to your mixer. Pour the yeast mixture into a mixing bowl and mix for 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl and place in a separate bowl that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Cover and let sit for one hour or until dough has doubled in size.

While the dough is rising it's important to prep your toppings because when the pizza is cooking on the grill you'll need to spread toppings fast. I pulled out a large tray and set the pizza toppings, all sliced and diced, on the tray.

Once the dough has risen you want to turn your grill on so it can be preheating for at least 10 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface, forming it into a rectangular or "log" shape. I like to make small individual sized pizzas because it's easier to handle on the grill and the toppings cook faster on a smaller surface area. If you want smaller pizzas cut the dough into 6 pieces and roll them out to 1/4 inch thickness. (This isn't a thin-crust pizza; the dough gets stretched when rolled but will immediately begin to shrink once you stop rolling it. It will also puff while cooking.) Spread olive oil on one side of each pizza and you're ready to grill!

Place the pizzas, oil side down, on your grill and immediately close the grill lid. This will allow for convection cooking. After 4-5 minutes check the underside of the pizzas; you want to see lightly browned grill marks. If the dough is cooked brush olive oil on the uncooked side and flip all the pizzas over. Quickly spread the ingredients on the pizza tops, then close the grill lid again for 5 minutes. Check the underside of the pizza again for grill marks and when cooked remove and serve immediately.

*My Notes: I've learned my lesson that grilled pizza is best cooked with sliced mozzarella and not shredded. It makes for easier spreading of ingredients and less mess!

Who Dished this first? me.

Chicken Ranch Pizza

I made the PERFECT pizza dough the other night. The recipe made two crusts and this recipe is how I prepared the first pizza. It was delicious!! Unfortunately, the second pizza turned into a complete wreck. First, I grabbed the container of enchilada sauce and not the container of tomato sauce. That pizza quickly became a new Mexican style pizza. To make matters worse I had a hard time transferring the pizza to the stone. In the end everyone said they liked the taste of the pizza but it sure looked a mess with ridges and bumps from the wrinkled transfer onto the pizza stone.


Chicken Ranch Pizza
Ingredients: (These amounts are all approximates and can be adjusted per your preference. Bacon would be a good topping as well but we are trying to limit our pork intake.)

1 pizza crust
1/3 cup Ranch dressing (enough to thinly cover the crust)
¾ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
½-1 grilled chicken breast, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 tomato, seeded and diced
2-3 green onions, chopped
¾ cup shredded cheddar cheese


Preheat the oven and a pizza stone to 500° F.  Prepare your crust for toppings.  Spread the Ranch dressing in a thin layer evenly over the unbaked crust.  Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella.  Top with grilled chicken, tomato and green onions.  Sprinkle with shredded cheddar.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and browned.  Slice, serve, and enjoy!

Perfect Homemade Pizza Crust

I make homemade pizza more often than purchasing it but I have never been completely satisfied with my crust recipe. When I read on Annie's Eats that she prefers this pizza to ordering out I had to give it a try. The verdict was that this recipe makes a delicious dough!!! We all thoroughly enjoyed it!


Basic Pizza Dough
Recipe from Annie's Eats
Yield: enough dough for 2 medium pizzas or 4 calzones

Ingredients:
½ cup warm water
2¼ tsp. instant yeast
4 cups (22 oz.) bread flour, plus more for dusting
1½ tsp. salt
1¼ cup water, at room temperature
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:
Measure the warm water into a 2-cup liquid measuring cup.  Sprinkle the yeast over the top.  (*While the yeast is proofing I added 1 tsp. honey since I've always learned that yeast needs a bit of sugar to work properly. I then let it sit until the yeast began to foam.) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the bread flour and salt, mixing briefly to blend.  Measure the room temperature water into the measuring cup with the yeast-water mixture.  With the mixer on low speed, pour in the yeast-water mixture as well as the olive oil.  Mix until a cohesive dough is formed.  Switch to the dough hook.  Knead on low speed until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.  Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, 1½-2 hours.

Press down the dough to deflate it.  Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface.  Divide the dough into two equal pieces.  Form each piece of dough into a smooth, round ball.  (If freezing the dough, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze at this point.)  Cover with a damp cloth.  Let the dough relax for at least 10 minutes but no longer than 30 minutes.

To bake, preheat the oven and pizza stone to 500˚ F for at least 30 minutes.  Transfer the dough to your shaping surface, lightly sprinkled with cornmeal.  Shape the dough with lightly floured hands.  If the dough springs back a lot while you are trying to shape it, let it rest for 15 minutes and try again. This allows the gluten in the dough to relax and should make shaping easier. Brush the outer edge lightly with olive oil.  Top as desired.  Bake until the crust is golden brown, and cheese is bubbling, 8-12 minutes.

Annie's tips on freezing the dough: (Yes, FREEZING! Isn't that great?!?) I was cooking both pizzas at once so I haven't attempted to freeze the dough yet but I'm excited to try this.

 

If you don’t plan on using your dough immediately, freeze it.  To do this, mix up the dough as usual and let it rise as normal.  After dividing the dough into two equal portions, wrap each tightly in plastic wrap and store inside a freezer-safe bag, and transfer to the freezer immediately.  (Reuse these bags to avoid being wasteful!)  The double layer is important here.  Even after the dough is moved to the freezer, it will continue to rise a bit before the rise is completely suspended.  It always, always pops through the plastic wrap so the extra layer of protection is needed to prevent exposure.
Freeze the dough until it is ready to be used.    

The day you plan to use the dough, transfer it to the refrigerator in the morning to thaw in time for dinner that evening.  (If using the dough for lunch, transfer to the refrigerator the night before.)   The dough that has been frozen tastes every bit as good as fresh, so it is incredibly convenient to have available for a quick, throw-together meal. Before making the pizza, take the dough out of the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for about 30 minutes to take off the chill.

I’ve had many questions pertaining to the need to freeze the dough if you plan to use it the very next day.  It seems logical that you could simply refrigerate it immediately after the rise and use it the following day.  However, I have tried this and it didn’t go well.  The refrigerator is not cold enough to stop the rise quickly and the result is an over-risen, crazy puffy monster dough.  My solution?  I still use the freezer initially to completely stop the rise, and then I transfer the dough to the refrigerator until it is ready to be used.  (I think another solution would be to use less yeast in the dough initially, but I don’t feel super comfortable altering recipes and changing amounts of yeast, so this is my preferred method.)

Notes regarding using a pizza stone:

I have heard many people say that using a stone is a MUST! Here is what Annie says:

A pizza stone is an integral part of really good homemade pizza.  Why?  The stone is preheated with the oven, producing a very hot surface for baking the pizza.  When you slide the assembled pizza onto the stone, the bottom of the crust starts baking immediately, producing the perfect crisp bottom that provides the slices structural integrity, while the top portion is still soft and chewy.

I have a stone and a large wooden board that I used for preparing the pizza. Once I was ready to transfer it to the stone my pizza stuck and I could not move it! What a mess! Next time I'm definitely using parchment paper. I cooked both of my pizzas so for the second I cooked it on a metal pizza pan with 1/2 inch holes int he bottom. This created a beautiful crust so maybe with more practice I'll have a better opinion of using a stone.