Bake a pizza - PEP BB food.sand.pizza

Nicole Alderman wrote:
To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:
  - one pizza
  - you make the pizza from scratch, including the crust
  - not burnt
  - dough is cooked

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must:
  - Link to/post the recipe you used (especially the part about the crust)
  - pic of the crust being made
  - pic of the pizza getting it's toppings put on
  - pic of the completed pizza and a slice of pizza
          o showing that the pizza is not burnt and it is cooked all the way through

Clarifications:
- All food prep and preservation BBs strictly prohibit plastic, teflon or aluminum touching the food at any point

I prefer whole wheat dough over polydough. I used the whole wheat recipe that I received during a breadmaking class by the extension office. I followed my oven's cooking instructions -- medium broil for 10mins.

Homemade pizza always tastes so good!
Here’s the recipe I used:
Pizza Dough
(makes 1 large round pizza plus extra for breadsticks OR one x-large cookie sheet size pizza)

Whisk together in small bowl:
1 1/3 c. hot water (105-110 degrees)
1 T. sugar
2 1/4 t. instant yeast (if using active-dry yeast set aside until foamy… up to 10 min.)

Whisk together in large bowl:
3 3/4 c. flour
1 1/2 t. salt

Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in yeast mixture. Gradually stir with a wooden spoon.

Knead dough 5 minutes. Dust with flour as necessary.
Form into ball and place in bowl with a small bit (about 1-2 T.) of olive oil.
Turn ball of dough around in bowl to coat with oil.
Cover with damp towel.

Let rise until about double (about 1 1/2 hours).
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Roll or stretch pizza dough out on baking sheet or baking stone.

Cover with toppings and bake about 15 minutes.

For my pizza I am making a gluten free sourdough crust with rice flour (I previously posted the recipe here: https://permies.com/p/1865383).

Prep work: (I usually make each of these in big batches and just keep them around for when I need them and then when you go to make your pizza everything is already made and you can just throw it together)

Sourdough starter:
Put raisins in a jar of water for a couple days until yeast-y. Then remove raisins and add rice flour and stir. Feed some rice flour and water every day until it's generally pretty bubbly, then you can keep it in the fridge and feed it once a week or so. I've had this starter for a couple years now. Sourdough doesn't have to be super complicated or over-engineered.

Italian seasoning (I made up this recipe by trial and error and what tasted good to me)
  1-2/3 cups basil
  3/4 cup oregano
  1/2 cup + 1 Tbs thyme
  1/3 cup + 2 Tbs sage
  1/3 cup rosemary
  1/8 cup parsley
  1/8 cup marjoram (optional)

The *dough (it's actually more of a batter because that works better for gluten-free) is assembled and rises over a day or two on the counter, then I keep it in the fridge until I'm ready to use it. Sometimes I add italian seasonings and garlic to it.

The pizza sauce is made by saute-ing onions and garlic in olive oil then adding tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and balsamic and red wine vinegars, simmering with the lid on for a while to let all the flavors meld together, and then blending it all together. If it seems too liquid-y then don't put the lid on to simmer.

Cheese. Remember to shred the cheese. Shredded cheese can be frozen if you want to prep a lot of cheese ahead of time.

Toppings: If you have some time to do some meal prep, it's nice to pre-chop veggies, pre-cook meat, etc. so you can just pull these out and plop them on the pizza. And you can use these for other meals as well!

Making the pizza:
Preheat the oven to 450-degrees Fahrenheit.

To make the crust, heat up some olive oil in a cast iron (this one I think is 14-inch) but don't make it too hot or it will be hard to smear all the batter evenly. Cook the batter for a bit on the stove - if the pan is bigger than the burner, you may have to skootch it around to get it to cook evenly. Once it looks like most of it is cooked, I'll stick it in the oven for a few minutes to make sure it finishes cooking on the top. If it starts to crack and dry out, spray/brush some olive oil on it.

Once the crust is cooked through, smear the sauce over it and top with cheese and toppings.

Here are the toppings I put on this pizza:
-Raw white cheddar and gorgonzola (I will often use homemade ranch instead)
-"Sasquash sauce" (this is a vegan cheese sauce my husband came up with when I was still allergic to dairy. The base is butternut squash.)
-Summer sausage
-Ground beef
-Red onion
-Bacon
-Mushrooms