Pizza Dough Recipe

EclecticGuy September 09, 2008 diy, recipe No Comments

Of course the EclecticGuy likes to cook! Unfortunately, I don’t cook as often as I would like. But, I do manage to make my special thick crust pizza – it is about the only thing I make my kids ask for. The recipe originated from Jeff Smith’s “The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American” but I have tweaked it a bit over the years1.

While very easy to make, the recipe does take some time to allow the dough to rise twice.

Ingredients

  • 2 packages of yeast (or I use 2 tablespoons of bulk yeast)
  • 1 teaspoon brown sugar
  • 2 cups of warm (90o water)
  • 1/2 cup of salad oil
  • 5 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 1/2 cup cornmeal
  • 4 1/2 cups bleached white flour
  • 1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 Jeff uses all white flour and slightly less olive oil and no brown sugar.
Procedure


  • Dissolve the brown sugar and yeast in the warm water in your mixing bowl (a KitchenAid mixer is great for this). Make sure the water is not too hot or you will kill the yeast. Use a thermometer if possible. 
  • Add the salad oil and olive oils.
  • Add the cornmeal, whole wheat flour and 2 cups of the white flour.
  • Beat for 10 minutes in the mixer.
  • Switch to the dough hook (or do it by hand – a sticky mess!) and mix in the remaining 2 1/2 cups of white flour. Knead for 5 minutes.
  • Grease your counter or a cookie sheet with a little olive oil and drop the ball of dough on it. Grease the inside of your mixing bowl with some olive oil and use it to cover the dough ball. Allow to rise until double in bulk. The time it takes to do this is greatly affected by the temperature. I usually start to preheat my oven at this point and put the cookie sheet nearby so it stays warm.
  • Punch down the dough and allow to rise to double in bulk again.
  • Punch down and it is ready to go!
This recipe makes 2 pizzas for me. I use 2/3 of the dough to make a thick pan pizza and the remaining 1/3 I push (roll) out and make a thin crust that I bake on a pizza stone.

When I lived in Boulder, CO back in the early 80s, there was a great pizza place on “The Hill” called Herbie’s Deli. It is called The Sink now. When they served their (delicious!) deep crust pizza, they always brought a squirt bottle of honey to the table. After you ate the pizza – saving the thick crust – you squirted honey on the thick bread-like crust and had it more a mini desert! Yum, yum! Try it!

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