Homemade Pizza

I've been craving homemade pizza lately.  Growing up, every few months my family would get together and make a few pizzas for dinner.  One was usually with meat and one with seafood (almost always shrimp and pesto... brings me back).  Having pizza this weekend just wasn't in the cards, but I decided that if I was going to eat it any time soon, I had to make the dough.  So on Saturday, I whipped up my first-ever batch of pizza dough.

Any recipe involving yeast tends to intimidate me a little bit - sensitivity to water temperature and expiration date, as well as rising-time commitment.  But this was very easy and I was able to run errands while it rose in the kitchen.  I based my dough off of this recipe from How Sweet It Is, with a few modifications.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
Prep time: 105 min
Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (the only kind I had on hand)
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup warm water
• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

 Preparation

• Combine water, yeast, olive oil, and honey.  Mix with a spoon and let sit for about 15 minutes or until yeast becomes foamy.
• Measure flour and salt into stand mixer and add yeast mixture.  Mix on medium-slow speed with dough hook attachment until a ball forms and dough comes together, about 5 minutes.
• Place in an oiled bowl and let rise in a warm location for 90 minutes.  Punch down the dough, then let rise for another 15 minutes.

At this point, the dough is ready to make into pizza.  I knew that I wasn't going to be eating it right away, so I divided the dough into four portions and placed each in a zip-lock bag and one into the fridge for later in the week, and the rest in the freezer for future use.

I decided that tonight was the night for pizza.  I pulled the dough out of the refrigerator and rolled it out on a pizza pan.  Since the recipe I used can make one pizza, I rolled my 1/4 portion out pretty thin (the way I like it, anyway) and it filled almost the whole pan.

Brendan "doesn't like" pizza (who doesn't like pizza??), so I had free reign on what I could put on it.  I added the toppings - fire roasted tomatoes, clams, mushrooms, onions, Irish cheddar, and smoked gruyere.

I baked it in a 375 oven for 24 minutes, let it cool just a bit and sprinkled some chopped green onions over top.

Then I dug in.

As much as I wish Brendan could have enjoyed my pizza with me, a plus side is that I got to eat the whole thing myself :)  The crust was crispy on the edges and soft and chewy under the toppings.  The mushrooms cooked down perfectly and the green onions gave it a fresh bite.  Delicious!

The best part is, I have three more portions of dough left.  I'm thinking maybe a barbeque chicken or margherita?  What are your favorite pizza toppings?