Grandma Pizza
Great for a large group of people and once the dough is ready everything comes together and cooks very quickly.
Rather than measuring, it’s best to weigh everything with an accurate scale.
DiNapoli canned tomatoes are fantastic to use for the sauce. If they’re whole then use a food processor until chunky.
If you want to make this a bit more like “detroit” style pizza, then used jack or pepperjack cheese instead of mozzarella.
Ingredients
Dough:
- 17.5 ounces (500 grams, about 3 ½ cups) all-purpose or bread flour
- We’ve also found that replacing 125 grams of AP or bread flour with whole wheat flour is tasty
- 0.35 ounces (10 grams, about 2 teaspoons) kosher salt
- 0.18 ounces (5 grams, about 1 teaspoon) instant or RapidRise yeast
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
- 12.25 ounces (347 grams, about 1 ½ cups plus 1 ½ tablespoons) water, room temperature
Sauce:
- 1 ~15oz can of San Marzano (style) tomatoes
- A glug or two of Olive Oil
- A few large pinches of salt
Toppings:
- Medium brick of low moisture mozzarella
- Mama Lil’s or Calibrian hot peppers
- Fresh Basil
- Or whatever you want
Instructions:
Combine flour, salt, yeast, and 2 tablespoons olive oil in bowl of stand mixer (see note for mixer-free version). Whisk to combine. Add water to mixer and mix on medium speed until it comes together and no dry flour remains. Increase speed to medium-high and mix until the dough is stretchy and smooth, about 6 minutes. The dough should stick to the bottom of the bowl but pull away from the sides.
Pour remaining olive oil into rimmed baking sheet and spread over entire inner surface with hands. Transfer dough to 13- by 18-inch rimmed baking sheet and rub top surface with oil until thoroughly coated. Cover with baking sheet with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature until dough has spread out to touch nearly each rim of baking sheet, about 2 hours.
30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 550°F, or as high as your oven will go. Carefully remove plastic wrap from pizza dough. Using oiled hands and being as gentle as possible to maintain air bubbles, push and stretch the dough into the corners of the pan by pressing out from the center and lifting each corner and stretching it beyond the edge of the pan. It should pull back until the pan is just filled with dough.
Top pizza as desired, cheese first, then basil, then sauce. Be sure to sprinkle enough cheese around the edge of the pan where the dough meets the metal of the pan. This will crisp up and make the crust amazing.
Sometimes we’ve found that the mozzarella is a bit bland. If this is the case feel free to sprinkle a small amount of kosher salt over the bare sections of the cheese. Don’t go overboard. If you are using jack/pepperjack, skip this step.
Bake until bottom is crisp and top surface is bubbling, 15 to 20 minutes total. Allow to cool at room temperature for 5 minutes.
Originally taken from Serious Eats - Basic Square Pan Pizza Dough Recipe (Sicilian-Style Dough)