s much as I love thin crust NY style pizza, I saw a “fool proof” pan pizza recipe over at serious eats and wanted to try it out. Turns out, I’m a better fool than the recipe planned for. I prepared the dough a day before, and let it sit out overnight to rise, and when I checked in the morning I still had the same size, moist, ball of something that resembled dough. Something smelled off about it, so I decided to trash it and try again with a more tried and true recipe for bread dough that I’ve used before. I’m not going to share the bread recipe because it didn’t come out tasting very good for a pizza crust, but the basic ingredients included flour, yeast, salt, sugar. After mixing them all and kneading (thank you stand mixer) I let the dough rise.
My dough about doubled in size, which is good because I was a little worried that the yeast I used wasn’t active because I bought it in 2010. Finally with some dough to work with I went to work by pounding the dough a bit and coating a cast iron skillet in oil. I put the dough in and let it rise again for another hour or so.
I also let my oven preheat to 500F (I wish it went higher because I don’t think it even hits 500 on a good day). Add your toppings generously (after all this is a pretty thick crust) and cook for about 12-15mins.
It may look appetizing, and it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either. The cheese started to burn, and the crust was just barely done, not crispy golden brown I wanted. It also tasted like bread topped with sauce and cheese more than a pizza – which is understandable because I used a bread recipe to make the dough. Overall I put this in the “try again” category and move on – although it will probably be a long while until I try again because I make a pretty good thin crust pizza.