2.215

8 (Mon) August 2011

Pizza Margherita

3.0

by me

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with DJ

The only problem here was the crust, which I made from scratch.  It was based on a standard recipe involving yeast, sugar, salt, olive oil, and flour.  After kneading the dough for several minutes and placing the ball in “a warm place” for about 2 hours, I got it to rise and double in size. I then pounded it down and rolled/spun the dough as thinly as I could and added the toppings and slid the pie onto a pizza stone in the oven on max until the crust had browned and the cheese had bubbled. Unfortunately, although the fresh mozzarella and fresh basil and tomato-parmesan sauce were spot on, the crust ended up tasting like bread without the chew and crisp of a proper pizza crust.

I suspect 2 main culprits.  First, I didn’t bother to allow the dough to rise for a 2nd time, which would’ve given the crust an added chewiness.  Second, my oven maxes out at 220 degrees centigrade, which required the pie to bake for about 15 minutes, resulting in a soft and not-so-crispy crust.

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