untanglingknots.com: Whole Wheat Pizza

by Karla ° Thursday, September 27, 2007

I have gotten a lot of letters asking me for my pizza recipe.

There are only two things in the whole entire world that I can prepare with my own two hands completely from scratch and have it actually turn out well - homemade pizza and chocolate chip cookies.

I am probably the last person on the planet that should be tooting her own horn when it comes to cooking, but I am quite confident that my cookie dough bakes up the most deliciously moist, melt in your mouth cookies ever.

Ask me to bake a casserole though, and there may be an uncomfortable silence between us while I try to find the words to express that I actually do not even know what exactly a casserole is.

We have been making our pizza recipe for a couple of years now and it has become a weekly tradition in our household. I wish could remember where this recipe came from, but I lost the original and it has since been tweaked and edited it to perfect it to our liking. If I remember correctly, the original recipe included both whole wheat and all-purpose flour, but we changed it to hard whole wheat flour because we try not to eat refined carbs.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough:

1 cup of warm water
½ tsp of salt
2 Tbsp of yeast
2 Tbsp of honey
3 ½ cups of hard whole wheat flour
¼ cup of olive oil
A handful of wheat germ
1 Tbsp of baking soda
A pinch of garlic

It took quite a bit of encouragement to convince Mark that wheat germ is not wheat made of germs. Not only is this stuff jammed packed with several essential nutrients, it is also very high in protein, which I like because I am a vegetarian and Mark likes because it helps him build his man muscles.

Feel free to pretend like I didn’t just totally ruin all the fun in eating pizza. Also feel free to omit the wheat germ.

Pour the water in a large mixing bowl. The water should be very warm. Add the salt and honey and stir until well blended. Add the yeast and let this mixture sit for about five minutes.

Add 1 cup of flour, olive oil, (maybe) wheat germ, baking soda and garlic to the mixture and stir until well blended. If you have a hand mixer, it would come in handy now. Add the remaining flour and mix well. The dough should turn into a ball. If it doesn’t, add a bit more water until it does. If the mixture is too wet, add a bit more flour until it is the right consistency.

Once you have a lovely ball of dough, place it on a floured surface and knead it for about a minute.

This is where Mark likes to pretend that his hands slipped off the counter and landed directly on my ass, which he proceeds to knead instead.

Place the dough in a plastic grocery bag (or in a covered bowl) and store it in a warm place to let it rise. After about 45 minutes, your charming little ball of dough will have doubled in size. Now is the time to punch it. Smack it up a little and let it sit for another hour before rolling it out.

We make two pizza crusts from this batch, but we like our crust on the thin side.

Once it is rolled out, place it on a pizza pan or a pizza stone (which is what we use) and take a fork and puncture holes in the dough to keep it from bubbling up while cooking.

Top with sauce, cheese and your toppings of choice and bake in the over at 400^oF or until the crust is toasted (about 20 minutes).

And voila!

Tasty tasty pizza.

Labels: All in the Family

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Comments:

Wow! Yum! My hubby and I like to make our own whole wheat pizza dough as well- but I never thought of using wheat germ! Good call- we'll have to try it!

Oh, and now you are also probably going to have to post your cookie recipe too- because, you know- it's only fair!

Posted by Jen : September 27, 2007

I am trying this *this* weekend, once this interminable heat wave ends!

Posted by Amanda : September 27, 2007

I love recipes!

Posted by Gina : September 27, 2007

This is where Mark likes to pretend that his hands slipped off the counter and landed directly on my ass, which he proceeds to knead instead.
I love how you guys flirt with each other. I wish my man would do stuff like that!

Posted by Anonymous : September 27, 2007

Thanks for the recipe, although I have to admitt I am horrible at making anything that contains yeast. I always kill it or something and the dough never rises. I'll give it a shot though; sounds delicious and I second you have to post the chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Posted by Anonymous : September 28, 2007

this is good! I love the ass-kneading part1 :-)

Posted by Anonymous : September 28, 2007

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