I was looking forward to this recipe, because for years I’ve been making pizza dough from a recipe published in Fine Cooking;  the BBA Challenge gave me the impetus to try something different.   Interestingly enough, my usual method is similar to Peter Reinhart’s, but it takes a little less olive oil, and is made in seconds (literally) in the food processor.

Reinhart’s recipe uses a regular mixer (or hand kneading) to make the dough, that then goes into the refrigerator for 1 day.  Two hours before making the pizza, he brings the balls of dough to room temperature.  In the book you’ll see a photo of Peter himself throwing the dough up in the air like a pro. I was looking forward to giving it a try, but my dough was just too uncooperative.   As I prefer to avoid  wearing the food that I’m cooking, I stretched it with my hands instead. 😉

Without further ado, some pictures of my pizza adventure!

The dough is supposed to stick to the bottom of the mixer, never clearing it completely…

I made four balls of dough with the full recipe….

And after spending the night in the fridge, they came back for a final rise at room temperature…  very soft and bubbly-looking…

Some of the ingredients we chose: mushrooms, tomatoes, black olives, sliced ham, fresh basil…  plus the usual suspects (homemade tomato sauce & mozzarella cheese)

Ready for the oven, a mushroom and black olive concoction….

The pizza was good, but both me and my resident food critic prefer the Fine Cooking recipe, which I’ll describe on my blog in the near future.

I should point out that most of the bakers loved this recipe, and you can check two of them at these links:

for “The Other Side of Fifty”, click here….

For TxFarmer and her take on a pine nuts pizza, click here….

Twenty-five recipes down, only eighteen to go!