Homemade Whole Wheat Pizza

If you want to make good pizza at home, you have to recognize your limitations. You don’t have an 800 degree pizza oven with a hot brick floor and a 7 ft. pizza peel. But that’s ok. You may not be able to make one just like your favorite pizzeria, but you can make a darn good one if you take a few extra steps.

This recipe may seem a little involved, but the steps are short, and it actually takes no more time than any other. We eat this at least once a week, and serve lots of them at parties. Oh, yes,and if you already have a dough recipe you love, then please look down at least at how we cook ‘em. We haven’t seen this method anywhere (though we highly doubt it’s original), and it makes for a great crust.

What you’ll need: a normal oven, a cheap pizza stone, an inexpensive aluminum pizza pan, and a pancake turner.

Whole Wheat Cheese Pizza

(makes 4-5 medium sized pizzas, takes a full day to create dough, but you can shorten it)

Dough:

2½ cups all purpose flour

2½ cups white whole wheat flour

½ cup dried instant mashed potatoes (optional, but makes for a nicer texture)

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp instant yeast (also known as bread machine yeast)

2 ½ tsp salt

3 cups water (see below)

2 tsp garlic powder (optional)

3 tsp dried oregano or Italian seasoning (optional)

Toppings and Assembly:

Cooking spray or oil

Cornmeal (optional)

1 can tomatoes (broken up) or tomato sauce

8 oz or so packaged mozzarella or similar semidry melting cheese (using fresh mozzarella usually results in a soggy mess of a pizza)

Spice mix (garlic powder, paprika, oregano)

Making the Dough

1.     In the morning, put the flours, potatoes, oil, yeast, salt, and spices into a large stand mixer (or a bowl).

2.     Mix these ingredients together using a spoon.

3.     Add 2 ½ cups water and mix for 15 seconds using the paddle (or your hand).

4.     At this point, pull the dough off the paddle. Now, it’s time to adjust to get the right amount of water. What you want is something that’s a little sticky, kind of like what electrical tape feels like. If you’re not sure what to do, err on the side of wet rather than dry.

5.     If you’ve got time, let the dough sit for 15 minutes. That will allow the water to redistribute itself evenly. If possible, you want to avoid adding flour or water during the kneading process.

6.     Knead the dough in the stand mixer (or your hands) for about 3-4 minutes. Stop it once or twice to make sure it’s not too wet or dry. It’s done when you can form it into a ball and the surface is not quite smooth.

7.     Put it into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

8.     The first rise will take about 4-5 hours at room temperature. You can always speed this up by adding more yeast (up to a tablespoon is fine), but your crust won’t taste as good.

9.     Once the dough has doubled in size, fold it over itself and reform to a ball. Do not worry too much about what “doubling” means—be in the ballpark and you’ll be fine.

10.  Let it double again in size (2-3 hours), fold it over again, and form into a ball.

11.   Flour up a cutting board and place the dough on it. Divide it into 4-5 smaller balls.

12.  Cover the balls with oiled plastic wrap and let rest at least 15 minutes.

You can refrigerate your dough for three days, or freeze it. Simply remove the balls from the fridge an hour or so before using.

Making Your Pizza

1.     Place your pizza stone in your oven and preheat to about 450.

2.     Place a ball on a floured board, flour up a rolling pin, and start rolling out your dough. If it keeps snapping back and won’t get thin enough, take a break for a few minutes. You’ve over-activated the gluten, and it needs to relax again.

3.     Roll it out until it’s as thin as you like. Usually you’ll get a good 12-13 inches in diameter.

4.     Spray your pizza pan with cooking spray or wet it with vegetable oil (not olive, which tends to stick). Dust the pan with cornmeal (optional, but adds great flavor)

5.     Lift the dough onto the pan. Now go around the pizza pan, and crumple together the outside inch of the dough, making a little ridge. Your uncooked pizza should resemble a cooked one in its shape, flat in the middle with a raised edge.

6.     Add spoonfuls of sauce into the middle of the pizza and spread out towards the edges. Then sprinkle with some spices. Cover in cheese. (Add toppings now too, if you have any.)

7.     Last step. Go over to the sink and wet your hands. You know that outside edge of the pizza you made? Wet it lightly with your fingertips, going back for more water if you need it. Again, you can leave this step off, but the edge won’t rise so nicely and may get a little dry and hard.

8.     Ok, into the oven your pizza goes, pan and all. Set a timer for six minutes.

9.     After six minutes, get an oven mitt. Rotate the pizza 180 degrees and then slide it off the pizza pan directly onto the hot stone. (This is all about crust, if you cook it wholly on the stone, it’ll be rock hard; if you do it all in the pan, it’ll be soft).

10.  Cook another 2-4 minutes, while you get out a wire baking rack (Don’t have one? Slide out the grate from your toaster oven and flip it over).

11.  Here’s how you figure out if it’s ready: Take a pancake turner and slide it under the pie and try to lift. You should be able to lift the pizza off the stone without sagging. (otherwise your pizza crust isn’t going to be crispy enough, though this depends on your taste).

12.  Using the pancake turner, lift the finished pizza from the oven onto the grate/rack you’ve prepared.

13.  You’re done. You can drizzle a little nice olive oil on top, but it’s not necessary.