My Favorite Pizza Crust

I love California Pizza Kitchen.  In fact, it's probably one of my FAVORITE restaurants.  Despite eating it ALL THE TIME during my former life as an auditor every busy season (only open restaurant to order from when we were working overtime on the weekends in downtown LA), I could do it everyday.  In fact, one job in Pasadena consisted of a team who had the same love of CPK and I think at one point, we had it everyday for four consecutive days.  There's so much variety in the menu, healthy and not so healthy, that we couldn't resist!

So here's an ode to CPK through my favorite pizza crust recipe, taken from the Pioneer Woman, who I adore but when I need to make my favorite pizza dough - waiting for all her photos to load and scroll down becomes a nightmare.

So here it is (mainly for me) but maybe for you too!

Ingredients:
1 tsp yeast (the kind you make poofy with water)
1-1/2 cup warm water
4 cups flour
1 tsp Kosher salt
1/4 or 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil - depending on how I feel, or how much I feel is necessary.

Directions:
I sprinkle the 1 tsp of yeast over the 1-1/2 warm water and let it stand for about 10 minutes.

Combine 4 cps of flour with 1 tsp of Kosher salt (trick to sift it in is using a mixer by hand).  With an electric mixer (because it's easier), drizzle in the 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil until it's all combined... now add in the proofed yeast and continue mixing until your dough gets caught up in the mixture because it's so sticky.

Coat a separate mixing bowl (when I'm lazy, I use the same one.. it's no biggie) with a bit of EVOO and roll the dough into a ball and cover it with a towel and set aside for 1-2 hours to let it rise.

I normally put the dough away in the fridge, taking it out an hour before I want to use it to let it rise again.  Pizza dough tastes best when it's done beforehand - 24 hours up to 3 days.  

I cook it at 375 degrees with my awesome pizza pan (with holes underneath to let the heat get through and helps to make the dough crunchy) for about 10 minutes.  You can also just see when the dough is starting to brown on the sides and the toppings are melting.  

I Made Bread!

For the first time EVER, I made bread last night.. from SCRATCH, without a bread maker. The recipe is my mother in law's and I snatched it from our cousin in law who has it on her website - only mine will be for amateurs like myself who have never made bread from scratch.

French Bread Recipe (makes two loaves)

Ingredients:
2 T yeast
1/2 cup of warm water
2 cups of hot water
cinch of sugar
3 T of sugar
1 t salt
1/3 shortening (melted)
6 cups of flour
1 egg white
Pam spray
cookie sheet

Yeasts of Fun: Put 1/2 cup of warm water in a bowl, sprinkle 2 T of dry active yeast (Costco kind is the best!) and a pinch of sugar - I'm not sure what pinch is so I just did about 1 t. Set aside and let the yeast do its thang (about 5 minutes)

Meanwhile, melt 1/1 cup of shortening and in a separate bowl, mix the following:
2 cups hot water
3 T sugar
1 t salt
1/3 cup of melted shortening

Mixing: Add the above mixture to the yeast that has been sitting for at least 5 minutes or until it's yeasty beasty. Next, add 3 cups of flour and mix mix mix with a mixer. Then, add 3 more cups and this time, mix with a spoon. A big wooden one is what I used. Now after you've mixed it... you let it sit for 10 minutes... come back and mix it... let is rest for 10 minutes.. come back and mix it... and so on and so forth - for a total of 5 times. I'm not sure if my yeast sat too long because I had to knead it since my mixture was huge and doughy - but apparently, you are supposed to just use the spoon. My wooden spoon failed and I had to resort to using my hands.

Once done, divide the dough into half - and here comes the fun sculpting part.

THAT'S DOUGH FUN: You roll out your dough on a floured board/table, and then you roll it up like into a cylinder... once you can't roll it anymore, you pinch the top so that it stays together in your cylinder form and pinch the sides so it comes in. You then pam your cookie sheet, put the formed dough cylinder with the cinched part on the bottom, and brush the sides and tops with the egg white (makes it crustier). Repeat with other roll.... let the two loaves sit and rise for 60 minutes, preheat your oven to 400 degrees and go do something else.

When ready, bake for about 20 minutes and POOF - you have just made your first set of bread loaves from scratch like moi!