When the moon hits your eye

I'm back to baking with the Daring Bakers (a huge virtual baking group) this month after a two month (move/lack of internet) hiatus! This months challenge was chosen by Rosa at Rosa's Yummy Yums and she picked Pizza Napoletana from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice which yields a beautifully tasty, thin, crispy, and chewy pizza crust. The recipe is on her blog for those interested.

I was relieved when I saw how quickly this dough would come together, however I find that making dough requires a lot of waiting and patience-something I sometimes lack. The dough needed to rest for 24 hours and then another two hours. The recipe, which I halved, came together really quickly and resulted in a very thin, crispy, chewy crust much like Rosa said it would. I spread my pizza out right to the edge after trying somewhat unsuccessfully throwing it. I used white bread flour instead of all-purpose four which I felt gave the bread a really nice texture.

My toppings were pretty basic as far as pizza toppings go and resulted in pizza that rivals take out. Pizza 1 was split in half. Left half: bacon, feta and provolone. Right Half: ham, green peppers, onion and a mixture of provolone and mozzarella. The sauce was a can of diced tomatoes, poured directly on the pizza and topped with minced garlic and dried basil.

When it comes to homemade pizza sauce I just use what I have around the house and it always turns out really nice and full of flavor. The second pizza was mozzarella first with minced garlic followed with pepperoni and sauce and then sprinkled with dried basil. I went overboard with the pepperoni thinking the five huge slices I used would shrink, but they didn't and the pizza was too greasy.

Overall, I'm really pleased with this recipe and will probably make it again in the future and freeze extra dough for later use. Making this from scratch has really gotten me back into the mindset of taking the time to make food (which I find very therapeutic and relaxing) instead of just throwing something together because its easy.