While we do have a great Italian restaurant, one thing my tiny town does not have is a great grocery store. I was actually shocked to see them selling feta cheese. They only had one kind of canned seasoned tomato sauce, and it was "lasagna style". I figured, "what's the difference?". And, yes, I am sure there is one but at this point... I had no alternative. It worked just as well.
I know I said one of the first things I was going to make when I got the Kitchen Aid was homemade bread. But I am a little scared of working with yeast. I never have.... not that I have ever let that stop me from doing anything else, but I am just not ready yet. I have found comfort in using a great alternative to yeast - beer. Every time I make beer bread I get ohhhhs and ahhhhs of pleasure. If you haven't made it yet.... you really need to.
While browsing pizza dough recipes and sighing at the amount of them that called for yeast, it hit me...... why should this be different from my beer bread? It is the same basic concept isn't it? So I searched for "easy pizza crust" and found this golden treasure...
Easy Pizza Crust
source - Internet
1 cup self rising flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan
2/3 cup beer
1 tablespoon olive oil
Combine the first 3 ingredients, then add the next two and stir until smooth and thick (like biscuit dough). Spread over 12" or 13" round pizza pan sprayed with Pam. Bake at 375* for 15 minutes (without toppings)
~~~~~
I used shiner bock beer for this because it is a really dark and full bodied beer and I was hoping it would add a great level of flavor to the crust.
It did, but next time I will just use Michelob Ultra, it just adds a "cracker" taste to dough. Instead of making round pizzas I made two rectangles and I also used my baking stone. I sprinkled it with cornmeal before I, literally, spread the dough out. Don't let the name fool you, this is not a traditional "roll it up into a ball and then roll it out with a pin" dough. It almost has the consistency of batter. I would advise baking it for a little longer if you want a crunchy crust, I wish I had of. Just make sure it doesn't burn. This is what my more visually appealing crust looked like:
From here I sauced them both up with Hunt's Lasagna Style tomato sauce and dubbed Bradley's a "Meat and Cheese Lovers" and mine "Spinach Artichoke and Feta".
The crust was actually very good. Frozen pizzas always have a WAY too thick crust for me. I actually prefer a hand tossed pizza but I want the crust that is under the sauce and toppings to be just paper thin. This was slightly under the "mid way" point of the two, leaning more towards the thin side.
Bradley's had a layer of "5 Cheese Italian Blend" shredded cheese, pepperoni, spicy Italian sausage, bacon and another layer of cheese.
Mine had the cheese blend, spinach, marinated artichoke hearts and feta crumbles.
I put them both back into the oven at 375 for about 25 minutes. The exposed crust really "crunched" up the way we both prefer it to.
It did, but next time I will just use Michelob Ultra, it just adds a "cracker" taste to dough. Instead of making round pizzas I made two rectangles and I also used my baking stone. I sprinkled it with cornmeal before I, literally, spread the dough out. Don't let the name fool you, this is not a traditional "roll it up into a ball and then roll it out with a pin" dough. It almost has the consistency of batter. I would advise baking it for a little longer if you want a crunchy crust, I wish I had of. Just make sure it doesn't burn. This is what my more visually appealing crust looked like:
From here I sauced them both up with Hunt's Lasagna Style tomato sauce and dubbed Bradley's a "Meat and Cheese Lovers" and mine "Spinach Artichoke and Feta".
The crust was actually very good. Frozen pizzas always have a WAY too thick crust for me. I actually prefer a hand tossed pizza but I want the crust that is under the sauce and toppings to be just paper thin. This was slightly under the "mid way" point of the two, leaning more towards the thin side.
Bradley's had a layer of "5 Cheese Italian Blend" shredded cheese, pepperoni, spicy Italian sausage, bacon and another layer of cheese.
Mine had the cheese blend, spinach, marinated artichoke hearts and feta crumbles.
I put them both back into the oven at 375 for about 25 minutes. The exposed crust really "crunched" up the way we both prefer it to.
1 comment:
i love making my own pizza dough. we do it a couple times a month. and in the summer, grilled pizza is my food of choice! yum!
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