Pizza at home and the beginnings of dough testing

Zed and I were frequenting Da Capo a little too much a few weeks ago - I had exams and Zed was working hard to sell his condo. They have amazing pizzas and I'm sure we went through the list, but heading there a few nights a week was a little more than our wallets could handle.

So with exams over and condo showings over, we decided to create our own pizzas at home. I used Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough recipe. I've used it before and it definitely comes together quickly, although I found after making it a couple times lately, that the flavour is far better after leaving it in the fridge over night to ferment. The yield for the recipe is about 6-8 medium pizzas, but I quartered it giving us two thin-crusted "individual" sized pizzas.

Our first attempt was alright - we used some chorizo, caramelized onion, mushrooms and basil and pureed tomatoes for the sauce. The crust was a little too dense, but nice and crispy none the less.

Attempt #1

The second attempt went better for the most part - I let the crust sit overnight and brushed it with olive oil after shaping, making it far more flavourful and airy when cooked. I think our topping combinations were more satisfying too - I tried to make a Da Capo inspired pizza - the Di Mario - with mushrooms, ham (I think they used Serrano but I used Prosciutto), bocconcini (I spoiled myself with a piece of imported buffalo mozzarella from the Italian Centre) and basil, while Zed just piled on everything he loves - red and green pepper, red onion, Ukranian sausage and bocconcini. The downfall was that I didn't flour our transfer tool (a baking sheet) enough, and we had to pull the crust off, tossling the toppings and stretching it out, just to get it into the oven.

My second attempt - "Di Mario"

Zed's very mangled #2

Like Jamie's recipe says, it is definitely a reliable, everyday crust. It also makes a nice loaf of bread that you can mix anything into (ie. olives, cheese, etc.). But the other day I was watching David Rocco's Dolce Vita where he featured a pizza dough recipe that included a bit of white wine (Nona Giulia's Pizza Dough)... definitely a bit more exciting and something I'm hoping to test soon.