Daring Bakers - Pizza & Toppings

Another month brings us to another Daring Baker's challenge. In some respects, I failed; in others, I did okay.

For October, Rosa, from Rosa's Yummy Yums chose an easy to follow recipe for “Pizza Napoletana” from Peter Reinhart's “The Bread Baker's Apprentice” which yields a beautifully tasty, thin, crispy, yet chewy pizza crust.

In her announcement post, she said, "I’m sure you’re going to like (well, I hope…)" We loved it.

Because of the need to have a photographer present while making the crust, I decided that pizza-making would be a great activity for the family to do while my mom was in town. Saturday evening was chosen as our special day.

On Friday night I began the process by making the dough and putting it in the fridge to rest. The next day we made 6 rounds from the risen dough. When they were ready, it was time to try tossing. This is where I failed. I wasn't in a great mood to begin with, but as a prepared my dough, it kept stretching and as I started to toss, holes would form immediately. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong and how to fix it.




Julia, on the other hand, picked up a piece of dough and tossed perfectly:

Doughs ready to be topped.

We didn't go wild on the toppings this time. Four pizzas gave us four opportunities to mix flavors.

Green bean, onion, tomato, chicken.

Chicken, tomato, onion, mushroom.

Here Lisa is explaining the soggy issue with the crust being too thin. It happened on every crust that was tossed. We plan to divide the dough into four sections instead of six next time to see if the increased amount of dough will help us achieve a slightly thicker crust.

The final product, minus the plain cheese version.