Bread baking: pizza

Today’s guest post is by Todd from Foodie’s Arsenal. Todd Van Patter does the writing, photography, and design for the site.
He also cooks (and eats) most of the food…

Hi! I’m writing in today because Linda asked me to take a moment to talk about bread baking here on Letters To Daria. I’m glad to do it, because baking bread is actually my first love in the kitchen. Over the past few years I’ve learned a lot about all kinds of cooking and unfamiliar ingredients (to me at least), and at this point you wouldn’t have to be too worried about eating anything coming out of my kitchen. But bread is how I got my start, and I always go back to it when I really want to feel close to my food.

Bread baking may seem like a tough starting point if you don’t know how to cook (or even if you do), but if I accomplish one thing today I hope it’s to convince you to go try to bake a loaf. Bread is basic; it’s reassuring and familiar, it’s us getting to know ourselves and enjoying our food. And making your own bread is such a satisfying experience in itself, even before you remember that you get to eat it, too.

“But Todd,” you’re saying. “I already have bread, from the store, that I like.”

That’s fine! But you still should try it. A lot of us have the bad habit of letting other people make all our food, and we aren’t in touch with our cooking and our lifestyles. At my own blog, I talk a lot about how food is more than food, and how the world needs better foodies to teach each other how to live more slowly and cook more creatively. Taking care of ourselves by learning to cook can be the first step to a simpler and more balanced life.

Still, if bread still seems like a big jump for the casual cook, let’s start with something easy like I did at first: pizza. Pizza is great because it’s hard to mess up and it usually tastes amazing no matter what you do to it. Seriously… pizza made in someone’s kitchen is almost always better than the average restaurant anyway. I really want you to make this, so follow along or I’ll yell at you.

For the dough you’ll need:

3 cups/ 350 g flour (unbleached all-purpose is fine, bread flour is even better!)

1 cup/ 8oz lukewarm water

1/2 packet or 1 tsp of yeast

1 tsp of salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

Start with the water; dump it into a big bowl mix the yeast into it and allow it to sit for 5 minutes. Mix in the salt and oil, then add the flour gradually, mixing as you go with a large spoon.

Once the dough is too stiff to keep mixing, dump it onto your counter and start massaging and folding it (kneading) with the heels of your hands, mixing in more flour and sprinkling more flour on the counter as you go. Do this for what feels like forever but is probably more like 10 minutes, until the whole dough feels rubbery and smooth in texture (no lumps or bumps inside).

Smooth it into a ball and place it in an oiled bowl for an hour, covered loosely with plastic. Over that time the yeast will give off air and expand bubbles in the dough, and it’ll puff up and inflate. Once it’s around twice the size as when you put it in there, you’re ready to bake.

Take the dough and smush and stretch it into a big circle or whatever size/shape of pan you’re using. Punch it full of holes with a fork, then cover it in sauce and cheese and Italian herbs (plus your favorite toppings). Bake in an oven at 424°F (220°C) for 10-15 minutes, until it looks delicious.

Take it out and let it cool for 5 minutes– don’t mess with it! If you cut it too early, all the cheese will fall off and you’ll be sad (and probably burned). After that, it’s all yours!

That wasn’t hard, was it? Now you’re a baker! My hope is that we can all try to start making a few more things ourselves, and hopefully this can inspire you to get started.

Feel free to check out a more in-depth pizza tutorial that I wrote if you’d like to take this a little farther.

Todd Van Patter talks about good food and living simply at his blog, Foodie’s Arsenal.