Pizza!

Day 304: For someone whose normal routine has included making bread every ten days or so for the last 50+ years, it's odd that until recently, I had never made a pizza. Now I have to agree with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that pizza is one of the world's perfect foods, and I'll eat any type of topping with the exception of anchovies, but my go-to was always Italian sausage and pepperoni until I was introduced to chicken-bacon-artichoke hearts. I'd been afraid to try making pizza in a standard oven, discouraged by multiple references to pizza stones/steels and impossibly high temperatures, but I stumbled across a secret (where else?) on YouTube: put a heavy-duty baking sheet upside-down on the bottom rack of the oven before preheating to 450 degrees. The crust won't be as crisp as that made in a 900-degree kiln, but it comes very close to home-baked from any of the common take-out pizzerias. The spicy meats are readily available and freeze well, so that's what I've been using on the homemade version. The dough is simple and quick, not needing a slow proof in the fridge. This recipe makes a 12-inch pizza.

Start by proofing a teaspoon of active dry yeast in 3/4 cups warm water in which you've dissolved a teaspoon of sugar. Sift together 250 gm bread flour (by weight, not dry measure) and 1 teaspoon salt. Make a well in the center. When the yeast is nice and foamy (about ten minutes), pour it into the well and stir into a shaggy dough. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, working all the flour into the dough. Oil your hands lightly and give it half a dozen kneads, put it in an oiled bowl and turn it once to be sure it's greased all the way around. Let it raise for an hour or until doubled. At the end of the hour, knock it back a few times (a dozen or so stretch-and-folds), put it back in the bowl and let it raise another 45 minutes. In the meantime, lightly oil a pizza pan and sprinkle it with cornmeal. When the second rise is done, ease the dough out of the bowl onto the pizza pan and begin gently patting it from the center out toward the edges of the pan. Build it up a little at the edges. Add your toppings. As noted above, place the pizza pan on top of a preheated heavy-duty baking sheet (upside-down) and bake the pizza at 450 for 20-25 minutes or until bubbly. I topped mine with store-bought pizza sauce (about 3 ounces), mozzarella and cheddar, pepperoni and sweet Italian sausage. Does any person in the world not like pizza?