Pizza has always been there for me—it doesn’t let you down. There’s a reason almost every depiction of teenagers in any given TV show or movie brings it around to pizza in one way or another. You’d think I was made of pizza when I was a teenager. In fact, I distinctly remember many a weeknight during my senior year of high school that involved a $5 Hot-N-Ready pizza from Little Caesar’s.
It was a Friday night tradition with my mother to get Pizza Hut and a weekend’s worth of viewing from Movie Gallery. Usually, our order was a hand-tossed pepperoni, breadsticks, cinnamon sticks, and maybe a two-liter of Pepsi.
Of course, there’s memories of going to the Pizza Hut lunch buffet, or butting in on other kids’ birthday parties at Chuck-E-Cheese, but haven’t we all had such an experience?
Pizza is a uniquely American equalizer in the sense that almost everyone can agree on it. Although there are quite a number of variations on it. I’ve had New York, Chicago, and Detroit style pizza—all with their own merits, but completely different from one another.
New York is huge, Chicago is basically a casserole, and Detroit is an ideal deep dish. I know! I know! I’m skimming the nuances, but boy do I have a long one for y’all this week.
You see, John and I have been very curious about making a cast iron pizza, lacking a pizza stone and all. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t want a pizza stone, for any of you paying attention out there. Nevertheless, it sounds like a Southern spin on the pan pizza if I’ve ever heard of one.
While you could buy that whop’em can of pizza dough, why not make your own? And this James Beard Foundation recipe for a quick pizza dough is an easy way to make twice the amount you could get in the can for half the price.
Quick Pizza Dough
3 teaspoons instant yeast or 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups lukewarm water (105 to 115 degrees)
6 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing the bowl
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Place yeast in a large bowl. Add the water and stir to dissolve the yeast. Add the olive oil and 1 cup of the flour, whisking together until smooth. Switch to a wooden spoon then add an additional 1 cup flour and the salt, then mix well.
Once combined, add the remaining two cups bread flour and fold together. Switch to using your hands to combine and knead the dough in the bowl. Knead 4 to 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball.
Place a teaspoon of olive oil over the ball of dough and move around the bowl to coat both the dough ball and the bottom of the bowl. Cover with a clean dish towel and set in a warm place for an hour or until doubled in size. Punch down the dough and divide in half or quarters for smaller pies.
Now, if you’re going to do this cast iron pizza right, it’s all the in the technique. There’s only a few things to keep in mind when using this method for pizza night: a really hot oven, lots of oil, and a couple of hours to spare.
A lot of that time is allowing the dough to proof in the cast iron pan for even distribution of your resources (so to speak). Other than that, much like with any pizza, you can go as crazy as you want with the toppings.
I opted for store bought marinara we had on hand, some cheddar and fontina, and cubed up bacon with some basil leaves. Though I could recommend a base of just mozzarella and basil with much the same fanfare.
So, with that in mind, let’s continue.
Cast Iron Pizza
Quick Pizza Dough
1 1/2 cups marinara sauce
12 ounces full-fat, low-moisture mozzarella cheese
Small handful torn fresh basil leaves
2 ounces grated Parmesan
Grease the bottom of two 10-inch cast iron skillets with about 2 Tablespoons olive oil. Place the two dough balls made from Quick Pizza Dough into each skillet. Turn to coat evenly with oil, then using a flat palm, press the dough out gently.
Flatten it slightly as you go, spreading it to the fill the entire bottom and edges of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rise for two hours. After the first hour, heat your oven to 550 degrees.
After 2 hours, the dough should be slightly more filled out. Use your fingers to press the dough around until it fills every corner, popping any large bubbles formed. Lift up one edge of the dough to let any bubbles underneath escape, then repeat, moving around the dough until there are no more air bubbles and it fills the pan.
Top each dough with 3/4 cup of marinara, spreading the sauce to the very edge with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle evenly with mozzarella cheese all the way to the edge. Season with a little salt. Add your desired toppings.
Drizzle with olive oil and scatter with basil leaves, if desired. Place pan into the oven and bake until the top is golden brown and crisp when lifted with a thin spatula, about 12 to 15 minutes. Immediately sprinkle with Parmesan.
Using a thin spatula, open pizza and check to see if crust is done to desired crispiness. If not, place pan over a burner and cook on medium heat, moving the pan around to cook evenly until crisp, about 1 to 3 minutes.
Remove pizzas to a cutting board and cut into six slices each. Serve immediately.
I know what you’re thinking, “Really? That’s all?” Yes, it sounds like a production, but as faithful readers of this column will remember, it’s a miracle I’m working with yeasted dough at all.
The pizza dough can also be used to make focaccia, or that fancy sounding bread that begs to be decorated with an abundance of vegetables. Or maybe just a vegetable pizza? Personally, I like them myself.
Now, how do you feel about Hawaiian pizza? Again, I don’t mind it. Frozen pizza is where it can get dicey, but there’s such a variety of those now you hardly have an excuse to settle for anything less than DiGiorno’s.
Do you remember when all these pizza places started coating their crusts with garlic butter and those dried herbs with parmesan? That was a sad day for a Pizza Hut purist like me. It was all to compete with Domino’s, always the cool kid in the corporate pizza world.
Who can forget when Michael from The Office set out to get an “authentic New York slice” and went to a Sbarro in the airport?
All during my school years, there would be the once-a-semester pizza party that classes would compete for. Sometimes it was over how many books one class read over the other, or how many Box Tops we brought in.
The promise of a pizza party with all movies and no responsibilities was motivation enough to get everyone participating. If you presented me with the possibility of a pizza party right now, I wouldn’t turn that down either.
For us here in the press room, pizza was always a Wednesday night tradition. We’d get the paper from the printers, stop off at Pizza Hut, then scarf down a pie while we’d get the papers ready to go out for the week.
Now that we are printing in house again, though, that opportunity has led me to take matters into my own hands. Hopefully, you do the same, even if you do use the storebought dough.
Again, I don’t mind it.
