I have found the perfect thick crust pizza- I prefer thick crust.  The crust gets a good crispy outside, but has a fluffy inside and doesn’t get mushy where the toppings collide.  Even though it is sourdough it isn’t overly sour and pairs well with pizza toppings.  I found the original recipe on Food.com and have altered it just a little

Sourdough Pizza crust- Thick crust pizza

Ingredients:

2 Cups sourdough starter

1 t salt

2 T olive oil

3 cups bread flour

1 t yeast to help things along if your starter isn’t really active

1/2 to 1 cup warm filtered water if needed.

Extra olive oil for bowl

Butter for pan

Mix all ingredients in either a bread machine or with a mixer through the knead cycle or until a baker’s window will form.  While mixing, add warm, filtered water until a ball will form.  My homemade starter was too thick, it too dry in the house, and I needed quite a bit of water to make the consistency right.  Once the kneading is done turn out dough into a large bowl, turn over with olive oil to coat, and cover.  Let rise most of the day.  Making this in the morning for Dinner would be good.  You can also make the night before, let rise over night, and then refrigerate for most of the day, but remove with enough time to warm to room temp. before pressing into the pan.  1 hour (or a little more, I get the dough into my pans before picking my kid up from school since we eat early) before baking punch down, leave in the bowl.  30 min before baking divide the dough into your pies. I can make 1 10 inch, 1 12 inch and 1 7 inch pie so we each have our own.  Grease your cast iron skillets or griddle with butter, the more the better.  This helps form a great crust on the bottom of the pizza pie.  Press your dough into the pans.  Brush the crust edge with olive oil.  Cover with plastic if it is going to be a while before baking otherwise skip that part.  Let the dough rise again as you pre-heat your oven to 425, about 30 min.   After the dough has risen again, top with a spare amount of sauce (my first problem with homemade pizza is I went too crazy with the sauce), and the rest of the toppings. You want to make sure you sprinkle cheese on the crust edge.  This is an important feature to the crust.  Bake for 20 to 25 min. until the crust is crunchy and golden.  Turn out of the skillets and let sit 3 to 5 min.  This is important to keep your toppings on top of the pizza, then cut and serve.

I have used roasted red pepper pesto like sauce and regular spaghetti sauce as the pizza sauce and that seems to work the best.

What do I like in the perfect pizza?  Honestly it is Costco pizza.

I like a bready crust- not one that is like a cracker- but is crunchy on the outside.

I like a crust that is firm enough not to be a floppy piece in the middle.

We like a buttery taste, and a golden brown edge, and- bubbly cheese on the crust.

I like a pizza that makes good left overs the next day.

Sooooo, now to find it.

The deep dish pizza recipe from King Arthur’s flour was good the first day, but made terrible left overs.

This got me to thinking- what do I want in the perfect pizza?

I think I have figured out my cornmeal problem with Pizza- way too much cornmeal.  Cornmeal is good, as long as you lightly dust the pan with it instead of making a thick layer.

Don’t use corn meal on your pans- use butter.  I rubbed them down with butter first and it was great.

Edge your crust with olive oil and then sprinkle a little with cheese.  They crisp up and get all bubbly and great.

I love pizza, I mean really love pizza.  I could eat pizza 4 to 5 times a week forever and never get sick of it.  But I have never been able to make good homemade pizza.

But I have decided, NO MORE!  I will make good pizza.

What I have learned so far:

– Do not freeze homemade pizza sauce, it separates and becomes weird.

– Cornmeal adds crunch, but also feels like I am chewing on sand.

– Cast iron over pizza stone.  When you have pre-heated your oven, and made your pizza put your pizza in your cast iron skillet for about 3 min or until the olive oil on the crust starts bubbling.  Then put it in the oven.  You get a nice crisp crust.

– Bake the pizza at 450, for about 7 mins, and then finish it up under the broiler on high.  This makes it nice and bubbly and golden, and the toppings scorch a little.

Tonight I am having beef pot pie made in a cast iron dutch oven.  This reduces my prep dishes to clean to two.  In the dutch oven I browned the meat, added onions, celery, carrots and potatoes and cooked those a little also.  Then a jar of gravy, frozen peas and pepper.

In dish number two, mixed up two cups of buttermilk biscuit mix, and added french fried onions as the crust, spoon that on top of the filling directly in the dutch oven.

All goes into an oven at 400 degrees for about thirty minutes.  By using the dutch oven instead of a casserole I don’t have to clean that now.

Putting bread machine dough in the dutch oven is not the same, it doesn’t turn out with the same crust, so it looks like you have to make the dough a day before.

OH MY GOSH!!!!

The first attempt wasn’t great.  The bottom was over cooked and I think my yeast is old, and I went a little far with the flour on the turned out dough but this is the closest to really good bread I have ever had.

I am going to try to make the dough in my bread machine and then bake it in the dutch oven.  Waiting overnight is a little long.

I am also making sour dough starter so that I can make a sour dough version.

NEXT: Let’s get a good pizza crust.  I like the crust to resemble artisan bread, crunchy out side, chew inside, big and fluffy with lots of air pockets.

I haven’t tried these yet, but I thought I would put them here so that I can keep track of what I want to try.

Cast Iron Pizza: http://www.macheesmo.com/2011/03/cast-iron-pizza/

Cast Iron crusty bread- http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/bread/other-bread/the-best-crusty-bread-dutch-oven.html

A whole site for dutch oven cooking: http://dutchovennet.com/Dutch_Oven_Recipes.html