Pizza Hut Style Pepperoni Pan Pizzas

Wow, that's a lot of P's.  The salad pizza I showed you last time would be considered rather healthy by most standards, make it with a whole wheat crust and low fat dressing and you'd be golden.  Especially when you look at that pizza in comparison to this pan of greasy, salty goodness.  Now, just like with my children (or my appliances) I don't love one more than the other, I just love them differently.  A nice slice of pizza is welcome any time in my book, be it breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacktime, or even sometimes in the middle of the night.  If I am hungry I'll never turn my nose up at pizza.  To Hey, Babe's amazement I'll eat it cold from the fridge just as happily as hot from the oven.

All that being said, there is something wonderful about getting your own personal pan of pizza that you are not going to be expected to share and you can top however you wish.  Hey, Babe and I are nearly always in agreement over pizza toppings (thank goodness!) and if the topping in question is pepperoni Little Man is on board as well.  These all ended up being the same but still, we each had our own.  When we make these pizzas Little Man loves that he gets to smoosh out his own pizza dough and I just love how soft and tender the thick crust is.

We haven't reached the stage where we need two batches of this dough to feed us, so instead of just making 2 9" pizzas and splitting them up, I make the two it calls for plus a smaller third one for Little Man which results in slightly thinner (but still incredibly tasty!) pizzas.  Honestly, a whole 9" pizza is a bit much and we end up with leftovers for lunch (yay!).  This could easily serve 4-5 people, especially if accompanied by a salad.  When I am making Little Man's pizza, I use one of my Pyrex Storage Bowls in either the 7 cup or 4 cup size depending on how hungry he has been recently.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I love these bowls? They are awesome.  I had to get a second set because I am always using them and could probably use a third set. Good-bye plastic!)

This recipe was originally from a Cook's Country magazine, and in light of Hey, Babe's refusal to bring home "normal" pizza from work I tried it right away.  I had high expectations and was thrilled to have them met.  Since I don't quite have the sauce right I can only recommend that you use your favorite homemade or jarred tomato sauce, and feel free to mix up the toppings.  Keep in mind that this is a greasier pizza than one cooked on a pizza stone and so is is a bit less healthy.  Knowing that, I comfort myself with the fact that all the ingredients are relatively wholesome and that there are no chemicals or soy.  Go ahead and try it.  You know you want to.

Pan Pizzas
Ingredients
   Dough:
2 tablespoons oil, plus more for the pans
1 cup milk, warmed to 110 degrees
2 teaspoons sugar
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for counter
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

   Topping:
1 1/3 cups for favorite prepared pizza sauce
3 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
Toppings of your choice (pepperoni, sausage, chopped veggies, etc.)

Instructions
1. Evenly coat each of two 9-inch cake pans with a generous portion of oil, about 1-2 Tablespoons a piece.

2. In a large glass measuring cup, combine the warmed milk with the sugar and 2 TB of oil.  To the bowl of your mixer add flour, yeast, and salt, mix just to combine.  Attach your dough hook and on low speed slowly start adding the wet ingredients.  Increase the speed to medium-low and keep mixing the dough for about 5-6 minutes until is is smooth (if you are doing this by hand you will need to knead around 10 minutes or so).  Shaped the dough into a ball and leave it covered in a warm place until it has doubled.  This should take about 30 minutes depending on how warm a place you leave it.  I often allow my oven to preheat to around 100°F and then turn it off to let it rise in there, or I put it in my laundry/boiler room which is around 80°F at any given time, it takes a little longer to rise in the boiler room.

3. Lightly flour your counter and taking half of the dough, roll it into a ball.  Flatten it into a largish disk and then transfer it to the oiled pan, using your fingers to gently press it evenly to the edges.  If at any point the dough you are working with starts to get tough and uncooperative, switch to the other piece and allow the first to rest a little.  Cover the pans with plastic wrap and let them rise in a warm place about 20 minutes.  Don't use your oven this time because you are going to need to start preheating it to 400°F. 

4. After the dough has risen, start assembling.  Divide the sauce, cheese, and toppings evenly over the tops of the pizzas to within a half inch or so of the edge.  Bake until the cheese is melted and your pepperoni (if you used any) is browning around edges, about 20 minutes. Let the pizzas rest in pans for 1 minute after removing them from the oven before taking them out of the pan and serving them.

Salad Pizza

During the first few years of our marriage, Hey, Babe worked as a manager for a fast food pizzeria.  Considering that it was the same place he had worked for all through high school and had returned to it for a few years after college while we were waiting for me to graduate and get married, it is no wonder that he had long since tired of their food.   I found this rather frustrating since it would have been quite convenient if he had been able to bring dinner home on the nights I didn't feel like cooking.  Especially considering Pizza is one of the foods I love and can eat over and over again in nearly any configuration.

One of the only ways Hey, Babe was willing to accommodate me was to on rare occasions bring home a not-from-the-menu salad pizza.  He and his brother had worked at the pizzeria together through high school, and upon tiring of all the heavy, greasy, salty pizzas readily available, they began instead to create various versions of this salad pizza when hunger struck them.  The salad bar and various pizza toppings available made it quite easy both to assemble and to switch up the ingredients by making it spicy, or with chicken, or bacon, etc.  It wasn't always the same exact ingredients, but it was always good.

I know this is another pizza recipe and I have posted several already, but since pizza is so awesome can you really blame me?  It really is one of my favorite things and because you can change up the toppings so drastically you never have to eat it the same way twice.  Coming up soon...Pepperoni Personal Pan Pizzas.

Salad Pizza
Ingredients
1 lb or so of your favorite pizza dough (I've even used this No Knead Dough)
4 oz. Cheddar Cheese
4 oz. Mozzarella Cheese
1/4 - 1/2 cup Creamy Dressing (we use Ranch, but Italian or Caesar could work too)
1 Red Onion, diced
4 cups Romain Lettuce, thinly sliced (you could also do spinach, iceberg lettuce, etc.)
2 small Tomatoes, chopped
2 Carrots, thinly sliced or grated
1 Bell Pepper, chopped
1 Cucumber, chopped

Optional Ingredients
Cooked Chicken
Bacon, Chopped
Hot Peppers
Olives
Sausage, Chopped

Instructions
Preheat oven (and pizza stone if you have one) to 450ºF.

On a piece of parchment paper, roll out your pizza dough into a circle of your desired thickness.  Sprinkle cheddar over the dough followed by mozzarella both to within an inch or so of the edge.  The mozzarella is less likely to burn and should go on top of the cheddar.  Place on preheated pizza stone and bake 12-14 minutes or until crust is golden brown and the cheeses are melty and starting to turn golden.

There are now two ways you can assemble this.  The first is to mix all the remaining ingredients, including dressing and your selection of optional ingredients into a bowl, toss them together and then spread them evenly on the pizza.  This works fine but then you get a big bowl dirty and you chance there being an uneven distribution of ingredients.  Instead, I usually spread some of the dressing on the top of the cooked pizza and then start layering the ingredients on, scattering them evenly over the top sometimes finishing with a little more derssing.  It's your choice.  Either way, slice with a pizza cutter and serve it warm.

Tex-Mex Sheet Pan Pizza

We eat a lot of pizza in this house.  When Hey, Babe and I first got married our apartment was across the street from a delicious pizzeria.  It just so happened that they ran a special on their pizzas the same night we would host game night with my brothers.  While we lived there we had a steady supply of delicious pizza.  Unfortunately, when we moved a few towns over the unthinkable happened.  We couldn't find a consistently good pizzeria near us.  Not only that but the pizzas near us were significantly more expensive.  That meant we would be paying more for pizzas that we liked less.  Not happy with that prospect, I started to make them myself.

Since then I have tried a lot of different recipes for pizza doughs.  Thin crust, thick crust, personal pan (a la Pizza Hut), sheet pan, quick, complicated, etc.  Most of them I have made several times and they will probably all eventually work their way on here, however, when I want to feed a crowd (and in a relatively short time) I nearly always go with my recipe for sheet pan pizza.

One of the things I love so much about pizza is the versatility of the toppings.  For this particular pizza I chose to make it nice and hearty by going Tex-Mex.  With a can or two of black beans along with some cumin, chili powder, veggies and a mix of cheeses it is sure to make each slice more filling, and more tasty.  I personally like to have some salsa, guacamole, or sour cream on the side when I make this pizza, but that is just me.  You can even change it up and still keep it along a Southwestern theme by making it spicy or adding some ground beef.  However you decide to make it, just be sure to make enough.

Sheet Pan Pizza Dough
Ingredients
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 3/4 cups water heated to 110 degrees
1 tablespoon sugar
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 envelopes instant or rapid-rise yeast (4 1/2 teaspoons)
2 teaspoons salt

Instructions
Preheat oven to 200°F and turn it off, this is where we will be allowing the pizza dough to rise.  Lightly grease a large bowl and set it aside.

In your mixing bowl, add your flour, yeast, sugar, and salt.  Give it a quick stir to combine.  Attach your dough hook and then turn mixer speed to medium-low and slowly adding the water and oil until dough, about 3 minutes. Put dough into greased bowl and cover with either a damp towel or plastic and allow to rise in the previously preheated oven until it is double (around 30 minutes).

While dough is finishing rising, liberally grease a 18x13-inch sheet pan (mine is a bit smaller so I use 2) with a few tablespoons of oil.  Once dough has risen to desired size, remove it to a floured work surface and roll it into the correct size for your pan.  Transfer dough to prepared pan and stretch and press the dough until it reaches the sides and corners.  If you are having a tough time getting it to stay stretched out and in the corners, I find that dimpling it seems to help.  Allow dough to rest about 20 minutes while you prepare your pizza toppings. During this time start preheating your oven to 450°F.

When dough has finished resting and rising, spread your selected topping evenly over the surface and bake 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted.

For our Tex-Mex version of this pizza I topped it with the following:

1 rinsed can of black or pinto beans
liberal sprinkle of cumin and chili powder
diced tomatoes
chopped bell peppers
minced onion
frozen corn
cheddar cheese
mozzarella cheese

Pizza is too inexact for me to measure the toppings, it amounts to how much I feel like or what is ready on hand.  Some people might be interested adding cooked meat to this or hot peppers.  Just as a side note, I usually add mozzarella on top of the cheddar because it is less prone to burning  Also, be sure that your beans are covered in other toppings (like cheese) because if they are exposed to the heat of the oven for too long they will end up splitting open and getting dry and crispy.  My pans are a bit smaller than the requested size so rather than end up with very thick crust, I choose to split the dough between two pans for a thinner crust (but still not nearly thin enough for thin crust).  This means I almost never have to pre-bake my crusts.  That call is totally up to you.  Enjoy!

Pizza Night

Ever since Hey, Babe and I were married we have been having my four brothers over pretty regularly for game night once a week.  When this first started we would just orders pizzas as it was easy, relatively inexpensive, and we really liked the one across the street.  Unfortunately when we moved we no longer had inexpensive, tasty pizza around the corner, and so I started making dinner myself.  There was no point in shelling out big bucks every week for mediocre pizza, and even if the pizza was great, it would still start adding up as a big expense.

I usually end up making things that are easy to put together but will still feed a bunch of men with very good appetites, which usually translates to things like pastas, pizzas, chilis, and stews.  As my menu plan shows, we were supposed to have lasagna this Friday when they came over, but I realized that I was going to be making pizza dough earlier in the week anyway and was going to have extra.  So we switched with next week's pizza and everything was fine.  That is the beauty of having done all my grocery shopping at the beginning of the month, in this case lasagna and pizza have very similar components but if I had been switching out a stew instead, I would have all the ingredients on hand. (Unless of course it were an atypical produce item, then I may not have had it, but that is besides the point). 

I make pizza often, and have a pizza dough recipe that I use most of the time because it is ready in about 90 minutes, which means I don't have to plan it the day before, or early in the morning.  That was great when I was going to my sister in law's house to watch her kids during the day, I got home in time to throw it together and get it in the oven.  However, now that I'm a full time stay at home mom I can try some other varieties.  That is exactly what I did this past week choosing instead of my tried and true pizza dough to go with the recipe the Daring Bakers used by Peter Reinhart.  It went together very easily and as long as your hands were well floured was very nice to work with.  In fact, this is the only dough I have ever been able to make a thin crust pizza with.  I found that it didn't have a lot of flavor and I think next time I may tweak it, maybe adding more salt or some pizza seasonings (basil, oregano, grated parmesan, etc.) to the dough.  I'm not sure, but I will be making it again and I'll take note of what I find.

This recipe needs to be started the night before you want to use it so if you want to try it, be sure to give yourself adequate time before you hope to eat it.  I never remembered to start it the night before until this time.  For toppings this time I went with Mild Italian Sausage, Peppers, Onions, and Mushrooms.  (This is also the dough I used for the Italian Sausage Bread, I ended up using 1/4 of the dough because I halved the recipe.  Take my advice and don't ever half that recipe, it is too good to only make half.)

Basic Pizza Dough
from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

Ingredients

4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled 

1 3/4 Tsp Salt 

1 Tsp Instant yeast 

1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with) 

1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C) 

1 Tb sugar Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

Instructions
DAY ONE

Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.  The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces. (I divided it into 4 pieces and found it to be just right for thin crust pizzas that serve a few people.  If you are going for personal pizzas, feel free to split it into more pieces. I ended up with around 36 ounces of dough and was able to split it evenly using my scale.)

NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.

NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.

NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil(a few tablespoons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a generously floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours. 

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C). (NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan. )

10.  Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal, (or get out a piece of parchment paper as I did).  Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.

During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again. You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan (or parchment paper, which does not need to be floured), making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for about 8 minutes or until done.  NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.

If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.