Pesto Pizza

Basic Pizza Dough recipe

Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook
Note: I like this dough because you don’t roll it, you just stretch it by hand

Makes enough dough for one 14-inch or two 9-inch pizzas
Active time: 30 minutes, start to finish: 1 ¾ hours (includes rising)

1 (1/4-ounce) package (2 ¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar or honey
1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for kneading and dredging
½ cup whole wheat flour (or can use regular white flour instead)
¾ cup warm water (105 – 115 degrees F) - divided
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons olive oil

Make the dough and let it rise:
1. Stir together yeast, 1 tablespoon flour, sugar/honey, and ¼ cup warm water in a measuring cup and let stand until surface appears creamy, about 5 minutes. (You must use yeast that is not old.)

2. Stir together 1 ¼ cups flour and salt in a large bowl. Add yeast mixture, oil, and remaining ½ cup warm water and stir until smooth. Stir in enough of remaining flour (about ½ cup) so dough comes away from sides of bowl. (The dough will be wetter than other pizza doughs you may have made.)

3. Knead dough on a dry surface with lightly floured hands (reflour hands when dough becomes too sticky) until smooth, soft, and elastic, about 8 minutes (I usually do 5 or 6 minutes.) Form into 1 ball, put on a lightly floured surface, and generously dust with flour. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 1 ¼ hours.

To shape the dough for baking:
1. Do not punch down dough. Carefully dredge dough in a bowl of flour to coat and transfer to dry work surface. Holding one edge of dough in the air with both hands and letting bottom touch work surface, careully move hands around edge of dough (like turning a steering wheel), allowing weight of dough to stretch round to roughly 10 inches.

2. Lay dough flat on lightly floured work surface and continue to work edges with fingers, stretching it into a 14-inch round.

Pesto recipe
Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

Makes about 1 1/3 cups (enough for 3 pizzas)
Active time:15 minutes, start to finish: 15 minutes

3 large garlic cloves (peeled)
½ cup pine nuts
2/3 cup coarsely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

With the food processor running, drop in garlic and finely chop. Stop motor and add nuts, cheese, salt, pepper, and basil, then process until finely chopped. With motor running, add oil, blending until incorporated but not completely smooth.

The pesto keeps, refrigerated, the surface covered with plastic wrap, for up to 1 week.
The pesto can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 2 months. If you are planning to freeze it, omit the cheese when preparing the recipe, then stir it into the thawed sauce before serving.

Pesto pizza
1 pizza dough
1/3 pesto recipe (slightly less than ½ cup)
1 can diced tomatoes, completely drained
shredded cheese – I use half extra sharp cheddar and half mozzarella (it’s better to shred this yourself – if you use pre-shredded cheese, it is dry when you bake the pizza. When you shred it, it melts beautifully.)

Pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees F.

Spread the pesto on the pizza dough. It will seem like a fairly thin layer of pesto, but you don’t want too much. Distribute the diced tomatoes evenly on top of the pesto. Cover with shredded cheese, less than 8 oz total, but it’s up to you depending on how much cheese you like.

Bake in lowest rack of oven for 10-15 minutes, until dough is fully cooked and cheese is melted.

I pre-baked the dough completely without toppings (pierce dough with fork so it doesn’t bubble up.) Then I covered with pesto, tomatoes and cheese and froze. Bake the frozen pizza at 400 degrees, directly on the oven rack for about 10 minutes until heated through and cheese is melted.