Shauna vs. Yeast: A Love Story?

For many home cooks and bakers alike cooking/baking with yeast for the first time is a scary feat to accomplish. I have been an at home cook/baker for many years and NEVER, not once, have I attempted to make anything homemade with yeast and the ever scary phrase "allow to rise for x amount of time" in the description. That is, until now. This blog entry is going to chronicle my first time working with yeast. As with everything on my blog, it is from scratch, no mixes here and certainly no shortcuts unless you count the fact that I'm not using fresh yeast and it is in fact active dry yeast in a jar (packets are also quite useful).

The recipe that I am using is from a Chef who I am constantly inspired by and only wish that I could be like her in some small way, at the very least with her Chef-fing abilities. Yeah, I made that word up and I'm fine with it. Alex Guarnaschelli is the Executive Chef at Butter Restaurant in New York City and also a frequent judge on the Food Network program Chopped, she also has her own show on Food Network, which is appropriately called Alex's Day Off! I used her recipe verbatim so I here is the link to it on Food Network.

Well, I take that back, the only modification that I'm making, because I'm a day time working girl, is that I am going to prepare the dough on Wednesday (6/29) and actually cook the dough on Thursday (6/30) for dinner. I have purchased the baking stone that every one of the food blogs I've read say you NEED to have. David suggested that it might be less expensive for us to buy about a dozen pizzas from Coal Vines or another local pizza joint that we like, but that's not the point! No sir-ree-bob, the point is that I am making history here, at least for myself, my beloved husband and our children, yet to be conceived or named! I, Shauna Granit am making pizza dough. Something I love, even more so since visiting Italy, but that I've been afraid to make for years. So here we go.

Supplies I had on hand for this challenge:
All Purpose Flour
Warm water - if you have a sink, you too have warm water
Kosher Salt
EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
Garlic

Supplies that I purchased for this challenge: Prices have been omitted, but remember! I only had to buy some of these things once!
San Marzano Canned Tomatoes (Product of Italy) - nothing but the best!
Fresh Basil - I even purchased a tiny little pot of basil (plant) from the store. Can I keep it alive? We shall see!
Buffalo Mozzarella - what the REAL Pizza Chefs use as topping for their pizza
Roma Tomatoes - for slicing on top of the glorious pizza
Corn Meal - nuff' said
Honey - I don't really like honey much, bad experience in my Dad's car when I was younger, but it's needed for this recipe, so HAD to buy some
White Pepper - which some say is better than black pepper in some recipes, who knew?
Baking Stone - I have coveted this baking stone for quite some time, so I bought the bad boy

So here we go. Shauna vs. Yeast, let's go!

Here are the ingredients for the dough layed out all nicely, waiting for me to make a mess of my clothes and the floor. A, T & T are resting comfortably with their Daddy in the next room so as to eliminate the need for baths for the pets after they would become covered in flour!

I didn't have David take pictures of the process of making the dough or me kneading something for the first time which was awkward to say the least. You'll just have to trust me, my Kitchen and the Kitchen floors that it indeed eventually came together to be this mass that you see before you. It looks pretty good! I wonder if it will taste good...I don't think that eating raw Pizza Dough sounds as appealing as cake batter off of a spoon or even cookie dough. Here's the dough, after it's been freshly made and drenched in olive oil to keep it moist.

I put it in the microwave (no it wasn't on) and let it rise while David and I went to dinner with some friends. When we arrived home the dough had almost taken over the house! "IT'S ALIIIIVE" came to mind almost immediately. But I punched it down - kneaded it a little bit more and put it in a ziploc bag, sealed it and then another ziploc bag, just to make sure we're keeping things sealed and moist for Thursday evenings festivities which involve only, baking pizza dough.

Fast forward to Thursday, hey folks, here we are, back at the same Bat Time, same Bat Channel as yesterday. Here is the dough in all of it's glory. Somehow it raised? rose? rised? a little bit more in the refrigerator overnight. I'm thinking that's a little strange but moving on!

Now I'll have you know that I have my own vision of what pizza should be like, specifically after trying it in 3 different regions in Italy. I know it wasn't technically invented there (well, Naples is questionable) but it is like nothing else you've ever tasted before when you take your first bite of pizza at a GOOD "authentic" pizza place in Italy. They're EVERYWHERE! The typical topping for pizza in Italy is a Margherita Pizza consisting mainly of tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil, tomato slices (sometimes) and salt and pepper. 

I made the pizza sauce myself using San Marzano tomatoes, etc. - ingredients are before you and there really is no recipe for it, it's just my own special (in my head) sort of recipe that I change up from time to time.

Pizza dough rolling is really not easy, at least for a first timer like me. I actually sort of used the weight of it hanging from my hands to stretch it and threw it back and forth between my hands a couple of times to get that authentic pizzeria person quality!

Here is how it turned out. Not bad....not great! David liked it! I also baked his for a little while longer which gave it a bit of a crispier crust. 

Final verdict: Will I try to make it again and improve upon it? Absolutely? I think Alex's recipe for dough is pretty good...do I have some ideas to make it better while not altering the chemistry of the dough to make it rise? You betcha!