Ahem. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
Michael and I often make homemade pizza, but we have always used store-bought crust that we just topped ourselves. Don't get me wrong, up until a few hours ago, I thought it was really, really tasty. A few days ago we were watching Good Eats on the Food network and Alton Brown, the chef who hosts the show, did a show on pizza crust. Hmm...intriguing. I have tried to make homemade crust from a recipe that my sister gave me a few times, but it has always turned out not so good. Toward the end of the episode, Alton said that he often eats the crust without any toppings...just brushed with olive oil with a little salt and pepper on top. Michael and I looked at each other and said, "Man that sounds good!" So, we decided to make this recipe. It's a bit involved as many of Alton Brown's recipes tend to be, but it is SO WORTH IT. Michael and I took his suggestion and just brushed the crusts with olive oil before baking and put some pepper on top. We also roasted a head of garlic and spread that on after it was done. The recipe makes two crusts and we polished it all off in about 10 minutes. It was AWESOME!! The recipe is available on the internet here. Just a few notes:
- I could not find instant yeast as his recipe calls for. In case you have the same issue, I used regular (not rapid rise) yeast that comes in the packet instead and it turned out, as mentioned before, REALLY WELL. I used one packet. On the back it gave instructions for using the yeast when the recipe calls for it to be added in with the flour and not dissolved in water first, so we followed those, actually measuring the temperature of the water we added, and it worked out fine.
- My crust was not pretty. At one point I was worried because it was only vaguely round and was not very evenly stretched. It totally didn't matter. I'll probably practice making it look nicer in the future, but don't get discouraged if it seems like kind of a mess. It will still taste amazing.
- This recipe is not difficult....it just requires a little planning ahead because of the 24 hour rise in the middle.
I may have to try this. I've tried making pizza crust in the bread machine, and the results were like a visit from our good friend Charlie Foxtrot. Since then, I've been a bit afraid of the stuff. Maybe I'll give it another shot.
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