Pizza Bender Mayhem!

Although you could say we’re on a bit of a pizza bender with the number of them we’re posting this month, that’s not actually what I meant.  Here in Salt Lake there’s a restaurant called Italian Village.  It’s not a fancy schmancy place you take someone on a date and order an expensive bottle of wine.  It’s a family friendly, community restaurant. The place you grew up eating, the high school hang out spot, or if you were lucky, it was your first job.  One of their claims to fame is their pizza bender.  It’s basically just a calzone, but it’s cheap, it’s made to order, and it’s fantastic!  Pair it with one of their delicious tossed salads (seriously, why don’t all restaurants toss their salads?) and you have a fabulous meal for like ten bucks.  Since we’re doing pizza this month, I decided to try my hand at creating my own.

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• 1 ½ cups warm water
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon yeast (or a packet will work)
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 ¼ - 4 cups flour 

If you’re using instant yeast you can follow this method, but if you’re using active dry yeast, you’ll need to proof it first, which I showed how to do here.  For instant yeast, throw all of your dry ingredients into a bowl, starting with 3 ¼ cups flour.

If you have bread flour or high gluten flour, use that.  I just used all purpose.  Either way, stir your dry ingredients together.

Add the water.

And the olive oil. 

I like to just use a spoon to mix it just until it forms a sort of blob.

Then I hand it off to the Kitchen Aid.  If it looks like this, you need to add more flour, ¼ cup at a time. 

It’s ok if it still sticks to the bottom, but you want it to mostly clean itself from the sides.  3 ¼ cups was the magic number for mine on the day I made it. 

Allow the mixer to knead the dough for 5-6 minutes.  The dough should be nice and smooth.

Pour about a Tablespoon of olive oil into a large bowl.  Since you’re going to want oiled hands anyway, just rub it around with your fingers and coat the whole inside of the bowl.

Then relocate the dough.  It will be really soft and a bit sticky (hence the oiled fingers).  Oil your dough scraper, as well.  If you don’t have a dough scraper, you really need one. 

Place the dough blob into the oiled bowl, then turn it over so that it is coated on all sides with a little bit of oil.

Cover that and place it in the fridge overnight.  Now, there’s a good chance that your dough will grow like crazy when you first put it in there.  If it starts to grow larger than the bowl, just punch it down.

Then form it back into a ball, cover it, and put it back in the fridge.  I had to do that twice with mine.

The next day, pull it out of the fridge an hour or so before you plan to start on the pizza bender.  During that time it will warm up and rise some more.

Preheat your oven to 425°. Punch the dough down and dump it onto a floured surface. Cut it into quarters and form each portion into a ball.  Cover them with a damp towel and allow them to rest for 10 minutes.  (If you want to freeze some for later, just dust them lightly with flour, drop them into a bag, and put them in the freezer.)

After its little nap, roll a piece of dough into a circle… something like 10 inches across.  (I leave throwing to the professionals, but if you’re more coordinated than me, go for it!)

Since I went so outside of the box with my first pizza, I decided to go uber traditional this time.  Feel free to stuff your bender with whatever you like.  (just make sure any meat that goes in is cooked first)  Here’s what I did.  A layer of paper thin pepperoni.

A handful of good mozzarella.

And another layer of pepperoni. 

Regardless of what you put inside your bender, make sure you leave the edge clear.  Then, with your finger, wet the edge of the dough all the way around.

Fold the dough over the filling ingredients, lining up the edges.

Using a fork, crimp the edge closed.

Poke several steam vents in the top.

Now, moving the pizza bender once it’s put together is a bit tricky, so if you’d rather, place the dough on your pan first, and then fill it.  Either way, make sure the pan has been brushed with a little bit of olive oil. 

Into the 425° oven for 17-22 minutes.  It should nice and golden brown when it’s done.

Allow it to cool for about 5 minutes and then cut it into wedges.  Serve it with your favorite marinara sauce and enjoy!

I’m going to be honest here, for homemade pizza dough, this one’s pretty good, but next time I think I might just pick some up from a good pizzeria.  It’s a lot of work to make your own, and even then, it’s unlikely you’re going to get the distinctive chew that a really good pizza crust should have.  I love being able to control exactly what goes into the pizza bender, though, and it’s fun to build your own.  What kind of pizza bender sounds good to you?

Welcome to May (hem!!!) - Pizza Edition!

Well, the traditional Mayhem hasn’t managed to find Seeley and me this year. I’m not moving across the country and she’s not completely lost in math. Well, here at Authors Kitchen, May just isn’t May without the hem, so we’ve decided to create a bit of our own.  Not only is Seeley sure to stir things up with her impending return (Yay!!), but we’ve decided to have a pizza off! Ok, so it’s not exactly your typical competition, but you know how we feel about rules. Basically, you're just going to get some recipes for some fantastic pizzas!

First up, a thin crust, honey mustard pizza. Somewhere in New York right now, someone is yelling at their screen about how honey mustard and chicken don’t go on pizza. Just wait until they hear about the crust.  I would say this falls into the category of what I call “cracker pizzas”. You know those crispy, thin ones with a crust that almost resembles the consistency of a cracker? The ones in the freezer section of your grocery store for like a buck? The ones you occasionally enjoy in private but would never actually admit to? Yeah, those. Did you know you can make your own, in less than 30 minutes, with no preservatives and other scary ingredients, and that tastes amazing?

Here’s what you’ll need: 

• 1 cup flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 3 – 5 Tablespoons warm water 

Toppings I used: 

• Cooked chicken
• Red bell pepper
• Green onion
• Feta cheese
• Mozzarella Cheese
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 2 Tablespoons mustard 

Before you start you’ll probably want to turn your oven to 425°.  Then, into a mixing bowl go the flour, salt, and baking powder.

Stir them together and add the olive oil and 3 Tablespoons of water. 

Mix, continuing to add water ½ Tablespoon at a time until all of the flour is incorporated and you have a soft, but not really sticky, dough. 

Knead the dough for about a minute just to bring it all together and get rid of any bits of flour or lumps. Form it into a round disk, cover it with a damp towel (paper or cloth is fine) and set it aside.

While that’s resting, slice your bell pepper into thin slices.

Then, the green onion.

Next comes the sauce.  In a small bowl, combine two Tablespoons honey

And two Tablespoons mustard.

Stir them together until they're completely combined.  I’m not sure why, but when you mix honey and mustard you end up with something much thinner in consistency than either of them on their own. If I were a chemist, I’m sure I could explain why, but well…

Now for the crust. Grab your rested dough and begin rolling it.  Be sure to keep moving it as your roll so that it doesn’t stick to your countertop.  You want the end result to be about 1/8 inch thick and 12 ish inches in diameter. 

Lightly brush your pizza pan with olive oil before transferring the crust. I just put a little on a paper towel and rubbed it over the surface. With a fork, poke the entire surface of the dough.

Into the oven for 4 minutes. Yes 4. Not 3. Not 5.  It should look something like this.

Sprinkle on some grated mozzarella.  Wait, I was supposed to measure that? I don’t know, a cup? Enough to lightly cover the surface.

As for the chicken, I just used some leftover rotisserie chicken, but you can, of course, cook your own. Just make sure you do it before starting on anything else.  Whichever you use, slice it thin and place it around the pizza. Follow that with the red bell pepper, green onion, and feta.

Cover with a light sprinkle of mozzarella, just to help hold everything in place. Then, drizzle over the honey mustard. You probably won’t use it all. 

Back into the oven for another 12 minutes. When it’s ready it should be nice and bubbly on top and starting to brown around the edges. 

Remove it and allow it to cool on a rack for at least 2 or 3 minutes before cutting. Then just slice it like you would any other pizza.  I know, often times pizza places cut their thin crust pizzas into square pieces. Why? It makes no sense. The shape of the pizza hasn’t changed. I just don’t get it.

So there you have it, a delicious, thin, crispy crust pizza you made all on your own. Feel free to use the same crust with more traditional toppings or these toppings on a more traditional crust, as well.  This is more of a guide than an actual recipe. 

So, Seeley, what kind of pizza are you bringing to the May-hem party?