Aaaaah pizza dough. In itself, pizza dough has an incredible amount of varieties and its applications are very flexible, allowing for endless creativity. You can flatten it out to make a pizza, make little snakes out of it for breadsticks, or stuff it full of your favorite toppings for a calzone. You can do a lot with pizza dough.
When I have time, and in the mood for a calzone or pizza, I like to make a pizza night out of it. The recipe I will share with you makes three small pizzas or calzones. If you feel like being adventurous, you can make special bread sticks, pizza pockets, a bunch of mini pizzas, or heck, make a pizza loaf! You don't even have to make it pizza based.
Here, we'll make the dough. I'll follow up on making two big calzones and a small pizza using the same batch of dough.
I'm not entirely sure where I found this recipe. Its one I've had for a while and I've adapted it and changed it to meet my different needs. This dough is a sweet, puffy dough, so it makes a tasty, pillowy like crust that's good for general purpose.
For the dough you will need:
- 1/4 Cup of Sugar
- 3 Cups of Unbleached flour
- 1/4 oz (1 envelope) of Active dry yeast
- 1 1/4 Tsp of Salt
- 1 Cup plus 2 Tbsp of Warm water
- 2 Tbsp Olive oil
What you need to do:
1. Pour the water into a small bowl then add a pinch of sugar and your yeast. Just sprinkle it on top, don't mix just yet. Let sit undisturbed for a little bit and in the meantime-
2. Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl then return to your yeast. If it has started to foam up, go ahead and mix until the yeast is completely dissolved. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until a dough has formed.
3. Lightly flour your working surface and dust your hands with flour as well. Roll the dough out onto your table and start kneading the dough. Knead for about 10 minutes. If dough gets too sticky, you can add more flour.
4. Once you've sufficiently worked the dough, add 1Tbsp of olive oil to the bottom and sides of a clean bowl. Place the dough ball into the bowl and add the remaining Tbsp over the top of the ball. Roll the dough around in the olive oil to get it nicely coated.
5. Cover and let sit for about an hour or until the dough has doubled in size. Then its up to you what you want to do with it. I'll tell you what I do on my pizza nights though.
Pizza Night for Three
And when I say three, I mean three VERY hungry people. This is going to make two large calzones and a small pizza.
So, you'll need:
- The pizza dough we made earlier
- Olive oil
- Pizza sauce
- Your favorite pizza toppings (for this I use just cheddar, mozzarella, and pepperoni)
What to do:
1.
Preheat your oven to 400f.
2.
Coat your working surface with a light dusting of flour and then divide your dough into three equal balls. We're going to do the calzones first, so put two of the three balls aside.
3. Coat your rolling pin with flour then roll out the first dough ball into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. This comes out just a little smaller than a piece of printing paper.
4. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet and start putting your toppings on only half of the dough. Make sure to avoid the sides as well. What I do for a pepperoni calzone is I first put a layer of pizza sauce down, then six slices of pepperoni, sprinkle some mozzarella, a little more sauce, six more slices of pepperoni, some cheddar and a little more mozzarella and then a drizzle more sauce. (the picture on the right has a lot less cheese, obviously)
5. Fold the un-dressed side of the dough over the toppings. Pinch the edges, rolling your fingers as you do so to seal the calzone closed. Then, poke a few holes in the top with a sharp knife. Don't stab all the way to the pan, just through the top layer of dough. This way, you wont create a big bubble and have your calzone pop in the oven.
6. Repeat for the next ball of dough for the other calzone. Slide them into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. In the mean-time, I get started on the pizza.
7. Roll out the dough, on a floured surface, to the desired size. You can roll it out pretty thin and make a decent sized pizza if you want. My son isn't a fan of crust on pizza, so I make it pretty thick and he spreads his toppings all the way to the edges. (He learned how to top a pizza at Unos)
8. Set your toaster oven to 400f and start heating it up then: With the dough rolled out , I transfer it to a toaster oven tray. (After all, the oven is busy and I want it all done at the same time) We then spread pizza sauce over it, then both of the cheeses.
9. Put the tray in the toaster oven and set a timer for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the dough has turned into a nice pillowy crust. Make sure you're also keeping an eye on the calzones.
10. When the 15 minutes is up, or when the crust has risen and just started to harden on the calzones, slide them out of the oven just enough so that you can brush a little olive oil over the top of the crust and re-puncture the holes in the top. (Mixing a little garlic in with the olive oil is a good idea too..yum)
11. Pop the calzones back in the oven for a few more mintues (5-7 should be fine) and return to the pizza. If its done, go ahead and take it out, cut it up and serve. I usually take the extra time for the calzones to cook to allow the pizza to cool for my son. Hes not into the whole molten lava hot cheese thing yet.
12. At the end of the five minutes, or when the calzones have browned enough, slide them out of the oven, cut in half, and serve with (or without) dipping sauce.
YAY
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