Easy Pizza Dough

My cousin Maggie, or rather, my cousin Jeff's wife Maggie, is awesome. She also was once a professional chef type, which at this point I have come to learn means one of two things:

1. The recipe she gives me will be great, and
2. It will also likely leave out a lot of instructions, such as 'don't stick your hand in the boiling water' or whatever because once you're that good a cook I think you forget others are not.

As such, I found the recipe she gave me for 'Easy' Pizza Dough daunting. I mean, yes, it claimed to be 'easy', but it also was for making the mythical pizza, which to me is very complicated and complex and only skilled surgeons can do. Also, I love pizza (because that makes me unusual), and was quite skeptical that the effort I would put into making a home-made pizza was going to produce something that tasted anywhere near as good as the far easier take out variety.

I was also daunted by the fact that the recipe actually produces four pizzas worth of dough. Obviously, this isn't really a federal case; you put the extra dough in the freezer for the future or act like a shameful American pig and either make an inappropriately enormous pizza with more dough, or throw away the extra.

I said it would be shameful.

I put last week's episode of Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me to listen to and then got down to work, tackling a package of active dry yeast for the first time (stinky). Very quickly I had completed the dough creation process and realized it was not difficult at all. So much for being daunted.

I will say Maggie presumed that I had brain enough to be able to figure out the 'pizza' part of the equation after instructing me on the dough, which is a questionable assumption. Luckily, Josh had been in charge of getting the home-made pizza ingredients, so I took the Boboli pizza sauce, shredded Mozzarella and sliced up sausage and hoped for the best. Still, I would say presuming that after you walk me through making the dough that I can figure out how to convert said dough ball into an actual pizza is giving me the serious benefit of the doubt.

Josh evidently loved the pizza, as was evidenced by the fact that he cleaned his plate and then pronounced, 'I hated it,' which is a trick he picked up from my family to offset the fact that you just inhaled the food someone gave you, possibly without even chewing. I will agree--it was good. Still, though, the next time I want take out, I bet he is going to remind me that we have three more dough balls in the freezer waiting for us to adorn them with pizza of our own.

Eat Me

Maggie Davis's Easy Pizza Dough

1 package (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups very warm water (110 degrees F)
4 cups all-purpose flour; more for dusting (good God am I going through flour with a vengeance; take that you pantry moths)
1 1/2 tsp salt (Kosher, thanks Nick)
2 tbs olive oil

Wonder how to get water warm enough to 110 degrees. Wonder, does that mean just hot water from the pipe or do I have to heat it? Decide to put water in a pot and use your fab new candy/frying thermometer just to be sure. Heat water slightly to somewhere in the 110 degree neighborhood and call it a day.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and set aside. Check.

Meanwhile, put the flour and salt in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Realize that there is no way in hell you can get four cups of flour in your food processor. Try anyway and overflow food processor. Wonder how big Maggie's food processor is. Chuck food processor idea in favor of the mixing bowl and hope for the best.

Process (or, you know, mix) briefly to mix. With the machine running, add the water-yeast mixture in a steady stream. Be amused with self that you are doing it this way and not just dumping it in.

Turn the processor off and add the oil. Pulse a few times to mix in the oil. Realize this isn't working because your dough is all one big glump around the mixing blade. Detatch glump and try to fold the oil in somehow. Mix again. Give up.

Throw 34 tons of flour onto your counter to make it qualify as a 'lightly floured surface'. Scrape soft dough out of the processor, or rather, detach glump from mixing blade with scraper and glop it onto said lightly floured surface.

With lightly floured hands (again with the lightly flouring; this is obviously a Maggie fetish), quickly knead the dough into a mass, incorporating any bits of flour or dough from the processor that weren't mixed in. Laugh at this instruction, since it is already a mass (see 'glump').

Cut the dough into four equal pieces with a knife or dough scraper. Roll each piece into a tight, smooth ball, kneading to push the air out. Laugh at this instruction also because dough refuses to become anything resembling tight or smooth. Dough is more middle aged - decent, but a little ragged around the edges.

If you want to bake the pizzas ASAP, put the dough balls on a lightly floured surface (oooh yesss, is it LIGHTLY floured? OOOOhhhh.), cover them with a clean dish towel and let them rise about 45 minutes. Do this with one dough ball and one relatively un-skanky dishtowel. You hope.

To freeze the dough balls, dust each one generously with flour and put each one in a ziploc bag.

Forty-five minutes later, be disappointed that said dough ball has not magically turned into a round pizza sized flat of dough. Debate feeding pizza dough a bran muffin, which you know is magic. Discover there are no more instructions on how to make this transition happen. Realize this is where baker Maggie presumes more of you than she should. Briefly debate about using a rolling pin to make the dough into a round pizza crust-looking thing, then recall that on TV there is always someone tossing the dough in the air. Try this, albeit feebly, knowing that if you really tossed the dough it would stick to the walls/land on the dog/both. Discover that feebly 'tossing' said dough appears to be good enough.

Top pizza with ingredients, which again presumes a level of mastery you are not comfortable with. Use Boboli paste and shredded Mozzarella and sliced sausage. Look through cheese/meat drawer for other bad ideas that you could ruin it with. Opt against any.

Wonder if you need a pizza stone. Wonder if you just put the pizza on the oven racks. Decide to follow Boboli-paste's instructions to put on cookie sheet. Oven at 500, bake 8 minutes with Josh staring into it salivating. Take photo. Eat.

Maggie says: This is a fun, romantic meal the two of you can make together! Food is love!

Heather says: Good plan unless Josh's back hurts, in which case leave him downstairs drinking Maker's Mark on the sofa and make it for him.