Easy Wheat Pizza Dough

If you've been following my blog a while, you have probably put together that I like pizza.  I make it almost every week.  Never the same pizza either.  I love to experiment with sauces, toppings, crusts... pizza can be anything you want it to be.

However, one thing I haven't done until now is make my own crust.  I always just use a store bought package.  This is certainly not because I like store bought mixes.  Every kind we have made is never crispy enough, but the reason I keep buying them is because pizza is one of those go-to quick and easy meals.  If you make your own crust it's no longer quick because you have to let it rise.  This means planning ahead, which is not something I do when I am making pizza...

But it just so happened that I was craving pizza on a weekend, so I had plenty of time to make up some dough.  I really liked this dough because it is made with whole wheat flour, it turned out crispy, and the recipe makes two pizzas worth of dough so you can freeze the second batch and have something ready for any weeknight.

Wheat Pizza Dough
Start to finish: 90 minutes
Makes 2 pizza crusts

1 tsp sugar
1.5 cups warm water (110-115 degrees)
1 tbsp yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour

In a medium bowl (or oversized measuring cup), dissolve the sugar into the warm water.  Mix the yeast into the water until dissolved.  Let this stand until it starts to foam, about 5 minutes.  Then stir in the oil and salt into the yeast mixture.  In another bowl, mix together the flours.

Pour the yeast mixture into your mixer bowl.  Turn the mixer on with the dough hook attachment and start incorporating the flour.

Once the dough is well mixed, turn your mixer on the 2 setting and knead for a couple minutes, or until the dough forms a ball.

Oil your hands and coat the dough ball on both sides before covering the bowl with a towel and letting it rise for an hour.

The dough should have doubled in size after an hour.

Punch the dough down and cut it into 2 equal pieces.  Freeze one of the pieces for future use and get ready to make a crush from the other piece.

For this pizza I oiled a small cookie sheet and spread the dough with my fingers until it covered the bottom.  Start from the middle and work your way out.

Let the dough rest while you preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Pre-bake the crust for 10-12 minutes before taking it out and loading it with toppings.

Bake the pizza for 7-10 more minutes, until the crust is browned and the cheese is melted.

Making your own crust takes a little more time, but it's way better than anything you can buy at the store.  What's your favorite kind of pizza?

Tomato Pie

Wait wait wait.  Don't be turned off by the name Tomato Pie.  I have thought long and hard about a new name for this, because every time I tell someone about my Tomato Pie people are automatically turned off because they think pies should be sweet.  But I really can't think of what else to call it.  I could call it deep dish pizza, but it's really not at all, so I hate to call it that.  This is my Nana's recipe and this is what she always called it so I will continue to call it that as well.  Just humor me and try it before you pass any judgement, because it's amazing deliciousness.

Tomato Pie
Makes 8 servings
Start to finish: 60 minutes

1 refrigerated pie crust
1/3 cup pesto
2 medium sized onions, sliced
6 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
6 large roma tomatoes
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup romano cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
2 dozen fresh basil leaves
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning

Start by rolling out your refrigerated pie crust into a greased deep dish pie pan.  Pre-bake your crust as directed on the package, though don't let it brown very much.

Chop the onions into half-rings and mince the garlic.

Bring one tablespoon of oil up to medium high heat and then add the onions, garlic, salt, pepper and one teaspoon of the Italian seasoning.  Brown them to the early stage of caramelization.

When the pie crust is out of the oven, spread pesto across the bottom.  Then pile on the onions.  Slightly pack them down. (Make sure your oven is now set to 450 if it wasn't already when you pre-baked your crust)

Sprinkle on the three cheeses and another teaspoon of seasoning.

Layer on the basil leaves.

Next, slice your tomatoes.

Now, there has been some trial and error in this department so allow me to explain what to do and not do.  First of all, I tried making this with a mixture of regular and Roma tomatoes.  Don't do this.  Use only Roma tomatoes.  They are meatier, with less liquid, which will keep your pie from becoming soggy.  Second, it's probably best that you quarter your Roma tomatoes into wedges.  You will see that I cut mine into half inch slices.  This is very pretty BUT, when you go to cut your pie it becomes a disaster as it is difficult to slice through the tomatoes.  If you do wedges, they are narrow enough that you can cut slices without ever having to actually slice a tomato in the process.  Go figure, my Nana's recipe instructs you to do wedges and use Roma tomatoes.  Silly me for thinking I knew better.

But I digress.  Once you have sliced up your tomatoes, layer them in a pinwheel type pattern, starting at the outside and working your way in.

Sprinkle the last teaspoon of Italian seasoning over the top.

Bake this pie for 20 minutes at 450 degrees.  Depending on how long you pre-baked your crust, it may be done.  If not, turn on your broiler and watch it until the pie is golden brown.  The tomatoes should show signs of wrinkling.

As tempting as it may be, you need to let this pie cool so that it can set up.  If you slice it too soon, just like any other pie, all the insides will ooze out.

Eat this just like you would pizza.

Look at those beautiful layers.

Spinach Alfredo Pizza

As you devour your Chicken Caesar Pasta leftovers, you are probably wondering what the heck you are going to do with all that extra spinach in the fridge.  The answer, my friends, is Spinach Alfredo pizza. 

Spinach Alfredo Pizza
Makes one pizza
Start to finish: 30 minutes

Your favorite pizza crust (could be a pre-made crust, store-bought mix, store-bought dough, or maybe you are brave and make your own dough from scratch)

For the sauce:
2 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup 1% milk
1/2 tsp flour
1/4 cup marinara sauce

For the pizza:
1 packed cup fresh spinach
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4-1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese OR 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella + 1/2 cup fresh mozzarella pearls
1 tsp Italian seasoning

Prepare your pizza dough as instructed.  Prebake your crust for 7-10 minutes, or until it has just started to brown on top.

While your crust is pre-baking, you will have time to make what I am going to call "Pink Alfredo Sauce".  It's a Katie original.  Watch out. 

Melt your butter in a small sauce pan over medium-low heat. 

When it is completely melted, stir in the parmesan. 

Whisk in 1 tsp flour into your milk, then whisk the milk mixture into the sauce pan.  Turn the heat up to medium-high and keep whisking until the sauce thickens up.  It should only take a couple minutes. 

Once the sauce is thickened turn the heat off and add the marinara sauce to it.  It should be... pink.  :-)  Ok so maybe it's orange but pink sounds prettier.  If you prefer plain old alfredo sauce just double the butter, milk and cheese, omitting the marinara sauce.  All the cool kids use pink sauce though so you have been advised.

Assuming you have pulled out your crust by now, cover it with the pink sauce. 

Then layer half of your spinach and the fresh mozzarella pearls. 

I got these on sale at the grocery store and they are so much better than shredded mozzarella.  When you bake them they melt into these gooey cheese pockets that are perfect on your pizza.  If you can find them, I would use them instead of every day shredded mozzarella.

The only thing about using the pearls is that they won't completely cover your pizza.  So if you use them, you will need to "fill in the blanks" with the parmesan cheese, and 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella.  Sprinkle the rest of your spinach on top. Finish it off with a teaspoon of Italian seasoning.

Bake your crust until it is crispy and the cheese has completely melted, about 7 minutes.

Slice and enjoy, preferrably with a glass of white wine.  This is not your every day beer pizza.  It is special, and therefore deserves something with a little more class.

Barbeque Chicken Pizza

This post is one that almost wasn't.  You ever come home and it just seems like nothing goes right?  That was me today.  It started with my garden.  This is my first year planting a garden and I have been having all sorts of hardships.  I have been really attentive and meticulous too, which makes it all the more frustrating.  Yesterday I came home and pulled off four rotten tomatoes.  I think I have thrown away a total of seven tomatoes due to this problem, which is completely out of my control because it has to do with the inconsistency and intensity of our weather here (many hot, humid, drought inducing days followed by several consecutive days of heavy rain).  Granted, I have about a dozen other tomatoes on the plant now that are fine, but I have yet to pick my first tomato and the more I have to pull off the more frustrated I feel.  I also haven't had any cucumbers come up despite the fact they've been flowering for weeks and my pepper plants have stopped producing as well.  So, this put me in a bad mood as soon as I got home.

Then I started dinner.  I had leftover BBQ chicken in the fridge and at work got the fantastic idea to make BBQ chicken pizza with the leftovers.  I remember the first time I made BBQ Chicken Pizza.  I had this recipe that included these little nuances that made it way better than your typical BBQ chicken on pizza, but of course, when I got home, I could not find the recipe for the life of me and all of the sudden I got very flustered and felt like I had no direction for this meal (Type A much?).  And to think, pizza is supposed to be one of those easy, I-don't-want-to-think-about-what-I'm-making kind of meals!

So, much like the last post, I just made this up as I went.  It turned out delicious, thank goodness.  I don't think I could have taken any more disappointment today.

BBQ Chicken Pizza ala Katie
Makes: one 12 inch pizza, 8 slices
Start to finish: 45 minutes

Pre-made pizza crust or pizza dough mix of your choice
     - I like Martha White's Light and Crispy mix
3/4-1 cup of part-skim finely shredded mozzarella cheese
     - I find that you can use less cheese and still get the desired 
       effect if you use finely shredded cheese as opposed to the 
       larger grates
1 cup of barbeque sauce, 1/4 cup reserved
     - separate recipe to follow
1/4 cup sliced red onion
     - you can use any onion but I think the red onion is prettier on 
       the pizza
3-4 ounces diced or shredded chicken
     - tips on how to easily whip up shredded chicken to follow
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp thyme
chopped green onion to garnish (optional)

For the sauce: (inspired by America's Test Kitchen)

1/2 cup ketchup 
     - I recommend an organic brand or Hunts- no HFCS

1/4 cup molasses

2 Tbsp grated onion

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp cider vinegar

1 Tbsp brown sugar


If you don't have leftover chicken on hand, you'll want to get that going first.  I like to cook up a bunch of chicken at a time and shred it for later use.  Shredded chicken is the ultimate multi-purpose ingredient for week night meals.  Need lunch for work?  Put it in a wrap.  Don't feel like making dinner? Throw it in a quesadilla.  Need some extra protein at breakfast?  Toss it in an omelet.  Put it in just about any casserole, add it to soup...I could go on for hours.


My preferred method of preparing these is poaching them in an aluminum foil packet in the oven.  First, cut yourself a long piece of heavy duty aluminum foil (you will be folding it up so make sure you have a big piece).

Liberally salt and pepper these guys and drizzle olive or canola oil on each side to coat.  The oil will help the chicken stay moist in the oven.

Fold the pieces hamburger style (yes I just said that) and assuming you made your piece big enough, you should be able to bring together the ends and fold them to make a seal.

Next, fold in the other two sides, making seals at all four ends.  This is going to lock in steam in the oven and therefore poach the chicken breasts.

Throw these into a 425 degree oven and cook them for 25 minutes.  Depending on how many pieces you're doing at once, they may not be done at 25 minutes, but I like to start checking at that point.  You know your chicken is done when it reaches 165 degrees.  

Old school cookbooks will tell you chicken should be cooked to 180 degrees, but I think old school cooks must have just liked dry chicken, or been paranoid about salmonella.  The USDA recently lowered their standards so I promise you won't die.

Wait until the chicken is cool enough to handle, but not cold, and shred it with a fork.  At this point the chicken will pull off easy.  The colder it gets, the harder it will get to pull the chicken apart.

Ok now that we've addressed that, it's pizza making time.  The first part is very easy.  Follow the directions on the back of your pizza crust package.  For mine, you start by preheating your oven to 475 degrees.  While the oven is preheating you combine the mix with 1/2 cup hot water, let it rest for 5 minutes (this makes the dough more workable) and then spread it out onto a greased pizza pan.  I use a pizza stone but have also had success using a small jelly roll pan.

Turning your dough into a pizza topping canvas is sort of an art (I think of it as a canvas because unlike many other foods, you can put just about whatever you want on it and call it pizza).  If you don't handle the dough with care you can have quite a mess on your hands, no pun intended.  I start with a ball in the middle of the pan.  I oil my hands so that they don't stick to the dough and I start gently pushing outward, using only the tips of my fingers.  You should be pushing the dough out from the center in equal directions so that you end up with an even, and perfectly round canvas. 

I should point out here that if you work the dough too roughly, you might end up ripping the dough.  You also may aggravate the gluten to the point that your dough starts bouncing back at you.  If this happens, stop what you're doing and let the dough rest for a bit, say 5 minutes.  The gluten will settle itself down and you can go back to spreading the dough easily.

I feel like there needs to be a picture here to break things up but I forgot to take any pictures of the dough so enjoy a picture of my puppy instead.

The next part of the process has been much debated in my house.  Do you prebake your pizza crust and if you do, for how long?  All recipes will tell you to pre-bake your dough a little, but I have often found that their instructions are a little conservative.  If you don't pre-bake your crust enough, a lot of bad things can happen to your pizza.  First, your pizza may not be browned all the way through when it's ready to come out, making your crust a little doughy.  You may end up with soggy pizza due to the weight of the sauces and toppings.  Or, you may end up with burned toppings because you kept waiting for your crust to turn golden brown on the bottom.  I have had all three of these things happen to me. 

I do not want these things to happen to you, so I recommend you pre-bake your crust anywhere from 7-10 minutes on the bottom rack of your oven.  Definitely no less than 7 minutes.  The toppings you put on your pizza will already be cooked, they just need warming, and your cheese takes like 3 seconds to melt so when you apply your toppings you basically want your crust to be 75% done.  It should not be doughy at all and should start showing signs of browning, like this:

While your crust is in the oven, you should be assembling your sauce.  I suppose you could use a store bought sauce but I just love a good homemade sauce.  It's easy, cheap, and you don't have to worry about things like high fructose corn syrup and modified food starch (seriously, look at the back of the bottle next time you are at the store).  If you are in a barbeque town like me you have a better shot at finding a respectable store bought sauce, in other towns, Trader Joe's actually has an acceptable sauce.  This is so easy though, I don't know why you'd even bother with anything else.

So, how do you make my sauce?  Well, you see, it's really quite the intricate process... you toss all the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer it until it's reduced by half.  

If you do this as soon as you put the pie in the oven, they should be done at the same time.  Side note: isn't my itty bitty saucepan the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Use this down time to also prep your toppings.  I chopped up some onions and leftover barbeque chicken.

For the onions, I really think red onions are best, but in a pinch (like I was in yesterday), you can always use white onions.  

I actually had this great idea after the fact to caramelize the onions before putting them on the pizza.  How fantabulous would that be?  Why don't I ever think of these things at the right time?

At this point, you should have your toppings, crust, and sauce ready to go.  For this pizza, I spread most of the sauce on the crust, reserving some to drizzle on the top when it's done (it's all about presentation, people).  I also like to do some toppings below the cheese, some toppings on top of the cheese, so you'll see I've put some chicken directly on the sauce.

Next you can layer on your cheese, and then any remaining toppings.  Personally, when it comes to cheese on a pizza, I am a minimalist.  Too much cheese will overwhelm all the other flavors you're trying to create and the less cheese you have, the more waistline-friendly it is, so use discretion.  When I got all my toppings down, I felt like the pizza was missing something, so that's where the spices came in.  Sprinkle paprika, thyme, and oregano on top.  See how pretty it looks now?

Bake your creation at 475 degrees for another 5ish minutes- just enough that your cheese is melty and the edges of your crust are super crunchy and delicious looking... kinda like this:

Take the reserved sauce and drizzle it over the top for that extra special touch.  This pizza was really good but it will be even better tomorrow, assuming there's any left.  Cold pizza anyone?