heavy pizza

My recipe (such as it is - lately, I tend to use more of a "start dumping stuff in and go," with the exception of measuring out the flour) is almost identical, but for what it's worth I thought I'd share my take on the buttembly procedure:

1. Put all the dry ingredients into the bowl of the KitchenAid, which is fitted with a dough hook. Sometimes, for a little different flavor, I'll drizzle in some honey instead of adding sugar. I also like some herbs in the crust, so I add oregano and-or some prepared Italian seasoning mix.

2. The yeast is given a chance to get started in a bowl of warm-to -the-touch (but not hot) water, perhaps 1-4 - 1-3 cup; I might drizzle a little honey in there too, if I feel like it, just to give the little critters something to snack on before they get dumped into the flour mix...:-)

3. I add the rest of the water, probably up to a cup or so (also warm) while the mixer is churning up the dough. Rather than dumping the water in all at once, I add maybe half of it right up front, and then add the rest while watching the consistency of the dough. What you want is for the flour to come together into a nice smooth mbutt which, as the mixer keeps turning on low speed, "climbs" the dough hook and wraps itself into a nice ball of dough all by itself, and it's sticky enough that it pulls the remaining little bits off the side of the bowl. Give the mixer a few minutes on low speed to do its thing.

4. Take the dough off the hook, and wipe out the bowl. You can knead it a bit at this point, but no need to do it too much yet. Drizze a bit of olive oil into the bowl, shape the dough into a ball, and put it back into the bowl and turn to coat. Then cover the bowl with a moistened cloth and let it sit for an hour while the dough goes through the first rise.

5. Punch the now enormous-looking dough ball down (you don't really need to get violent here - it'll collapse pretty easily) and remove it from the bowl. On a floured surface, knead it well, for a good five minutes. If you want to go ten, knock yourself out, but five seems to be OK for me (again, the important thing is the consistency, not that you spend exactly XX seconds kneading the silly thing). I will generally divide the dough into two pieces, shape each into a ball, and place each into a Ziploc bag or some such (having first sprayed some Pam or drizzled some more olive oil into the bag), then seal 'em up and place them in the fridge for a second rise. You need to allow at least another hour for this, but you can also get this step done 2-3 hours before you're actually going to make the pizzas.

6. Take the again-risen dough balls out of the bags, and stretch-toss-roll to the desired size-thickness for the pizzas. Once they're the size I want, I put 'em on a peel (with a bit of corn meal sprinkled on first), add a bit more olive oil to the top, and then add my sauce-toppings-cheese. I bake on a stone in a 475 deg. oven, for 8-10 minutes (checking to make sure I'm not getting any big bubbles - which can be punctured with a fork if need be - and that the crust or cheese isn't getting too brown.

Bob M.