I like my sourdough pizza’s that I’ve made in the past, but I have to say I am pretty impressed with the pizza dough recipe my wife recently found. She found it looking for a breadstick recipe for our son. First, let me give credit where credit’s due. The recipe came from the blog of Amy Clark at momadvice.com. The recipe is a take on a Pizza Hut dough copycat. Now, just like Amy, I don’t really care for Pizza Hut crust. It is way too greasy for me and seems to be too airy. I liken it to a sponge that has been dipped in the deep fryer. So, I was a little bit skeptical when my wife said she was making a dough similar to Pizza Hut. I was quite surprised, however, that it came out GREAT. The recipe is unique in that it uses both yeast as well as baking powder. This gives it a bit more lift in the oven and makes for a great texture. Not too airy like Pizza Hut and definitly not greasy. It still had a nice chewy texture but was easier to bite than my typical pizza dough. I have to say it is a winner. The pizza you see above was made with this recipe but a little more than half of the flour was whole wheat. Often I find whole wheat crust tends to be tough but this one turned out great. It was still easy to bite with a great flavor. The first time we tried this recipe it made a dough that was way too wet. This time we added a bit more flour and it was perfect. Of course flour hydration varies a lot depending on the climate. You may want to play around with it. I like my pizza dough a little bit on the wet side anyway.

Pizza Hut Style Pizza Dough

1 1/3 cups water
2 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp cornmeal
3 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1 1/2 tsp yeast

I’ve talked about making pizza before so I won’t go into details about the dough and stuff. I just wanted to post a quick post to share my latest one. This one has an all white flour crust that was softened by the addition of some olive oil to the dough. I did use my sourdough starter along with some yeast to help boost it as I only had a day to raise this dough. Topped with a basic commercial pizza sauce and mozarella cheese. Underneath the cheese are pieces of a really nice hard salami that I picked up at Trader Joe’s. It added just the right hint of flavor.

I am on such a bread making kick lately and my sourdough starter has been bubbling away like mad. I have been feeding it well over the last week to get it very active for my thanksgiving bread baking. Of course, when you feed starter you need to throw some out each time. I hate to kill my babies. So, I decided instead to use the extra for pizza dough. Pizza is really easy and you can do just about anything with it. I just top it with whatever I have around at the time. My dough was made solely from flour, salt, water, a bit of oil, and my starter.

Here are the ingredients I scrounged up for this batch of pizza:

Chopped garlic, dried oregano and basil, salt, pepper, pastrami, kalamata olives, fresh tomato slices and fresh mozzarella.

I didn’t use a sauce on this on as I wanted the flavor of fresh tomatoes to dominate. But I do often use a simple tomato sauce.

First step is to stretch the dough into a round. This is the most fun part! You get to feel the dough. Pull it. Toss it if you dare. But get it flattened out and ready to go. I brushed this with olive oil and sprinkled on the herbs, salt and pepper. I always brush my dough with oil even if I’m using sauce to prevent the dough from getting to wet from the ingredients that top it.

This was topped with the fresh tomato, fresh chopped garlic, olives, pastrami and fresh mozzarella. Of course you can add just about any ingredient you like. Early in my pizza making days I made the mistake of piling on too many ingredients. Go light. Don’t overdo it. Otherwise your pizza will be too heavy, too thick and will not cook well.

Here’s the final product after being baked for about 10 minutes in a hot (500 degree) oven. Of course I use a baking stone to get that crispy crust.

bon appetit