I have a bunch of different za! dough recipes banging around this here blog thing-y, and I am pretty darned pleased with several of them, but for sheer speed and taste and ease of tossing together at the last possible minute? This is the dough to go for!
I often quote Julia Child when making anything involving dough:
“YOU are the boss of that dough!”
Ms. Child is usually referring to the amount of fretting folk tend to get into about being there, on the spot, the instant a dough in process needs to be turned or punched down or whatever needs be done to that particular bowl o’ stuff.
The wicked nizzah cool thing about this dough is that there is none of that tedious mucking about with rising and punching down and then, mebbe, thinking about punching it all down again, just to be sure…
You heat your oven and pizza stone, make your dough in the food processor, roll it out, arrange it on the stone, top it, and bake.
Easey-peasey – and delicious.
INGREDIENTS
•2-1/2 cups flour
•1 tsp sea salt
•1 tsp Aleppo pepper
•1 tsp black pepper
•2 tbsp cubed cold butter
•1 cup beer
This dough needs no rising or resting time, comes together in a snap in the food processor fitted with the metal blade, and is mebbe my new favorite pizza dough. The recipe makes enough for one pizza.
Heat your oven to 450º and place your pizza stone on the bottom rack.
Note: my oven has a convection “pizza” button which is pre set to 425º, and I used that setting.
Add the flour, salt, and peppers to the bowl of your food processor and pulse to combine.
Add the cubed butter and pulse until it has been worked into the flour mixture.
Pour in the beer and pulse until the dough pulls away from the side of the food processor and forms a ball.
Roll the dough out into a circle on a piece of parchment paper – my circle was less than perfect, but it was in one piece, for I called it a win.
Remove the pizza stone from the oven and transfer your rolled out dough to it. I find this works much better for me than if I try topping the dough and ten transferring.
Top as you will; I like to spread a bit of olive oil or mebbe garlic butter over the dough before adding any other sauce and toppings, because I think it helps to keep the crust from getting weighed down and soggy.
Pop in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or so, until the crust is golden brown and a bit crispity on the edges and any cheese is nicely melted.
Remove from the oven, transfer to a cutting board, and cut into wedges, or howver you prefer your ‘za! cut.
Nice and easy, no?