The Bread Baking Babes Invite Me Over for Pizza

The intrepid Bread Baking Babes invited those of us in the culinary blogosphere to join them this week for some pizza. Interestingly enough, I’d been experimenting with different pizza dough recipes, trying to recreate my mum’s extraordinary pizzas.

Believe it or not, I never had commercial take-out pizza until I went to college and discovered Pizza Hut pan pizza, which is still near and dear to my heart. We had a huge garden, and every Sunday my mom would make homemade pizza using homemade tomato sauce (from our garden’s tomatoes), parmiggiano reggiano (when most of America was eating the stuff in the green can), mozzarella, manzanilla olives, and anchovies (for my dad). The taste was out of this world, and the crust was crisp on the outside, with a chewy center. Most of all, the crust actually had *gasp* flavor.

In my recent efforts to make a good home pizza, I have come to the conclusion that Olive Oil Is Your Friend. By that I mean, be generous with it. Really generous. It keeps the dough from sticking to the pan, and gives the crust a richer flavor. This means, if you’re watching calories (HA!), try to cut back on them by choosing your toppings wisely. At least, that’s my philosophy. Luckily, I like simple toppings like basil, tomato, not too much cheese. I remember being shocked at how much olive oil my mom was using, my teenage ego believing it was totally unnecessary. Boy, was I wrong.

I’ve also been experimenting with sourdough, so I was delighted to find out that the Bread Baking Babes were using a sourdough pizza crust from Daniel Leader’s wonderful new book, Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe’s Best Artisan Bakers. I dove in and made the Genzano Potato Pizza, because I wanted to try something different, and at 80% hydration, the dough was wet enough for me. I wasn’t in the mood to be fighting anything – I wanted to have some fun!

What a delicious crust! I put about three tablespoons of olive oil on the sheet pan (and the pizza still stuck slightly, but a little bit of effort detached it from the pan), so the bottom of the crust was a golden brown, extremely crisp, with no trace of sogginess. The rest of the dough was slightly chewy, filled with airholes, and light as a feather. I halved the amount of potatoes, rosemary, and onion called for in the recipe, but I was generous with the salt, and doubled the amount called for in the topping (but not in the dough). I’ve found that some of Leader’s recipes need a bit more salt.

Would I make this again? Yes! But next time I think I’ll go back to my simple old standby, pizza Margherita. This crust is so wonderful, it could stand up to a tomato sauce, not to mention the prodigious amount of toppings that Master Chow likes on his pizza.

Thank you, BBBs, for inviting us to join you again this month. Check out all my Bread Baking Babes, The Sour Dough (Mary), A Fridge Full of Food (Glenna), Bake My Day (Karen), Cookie Baker Lynn (Lynn), I Like to Cook (Sara), Living on Bread and Water (Monique), Lucullian Delights (Ilva), My Kitchen in Half Cups (Tanna), Grain Doe (Gorel), Notitie van Lien (Lien), Thyme of Cooking (Katie), and What Did You Eat (Sher). And be sure to check back with their blogs to see what next month’s invitation will bring!