Stuffed crust pizza.



Ben and I love pizza- all kinds. Thin crust, thick crust, plain cheese, veggies, white pizza, regular, and everything in between. I've experimen ted a lot with pizza crusts over the last few y ears and at one point a couple years ago, I asked my mother for her crust recipe, since I've always loved her pizza. It might be just me, but do you ever notice how Mom's ANYTHING is better than when you make it? I have her crust "recipe" (she doesn't measure anything out) and mine still doesn't turn out as delicious as hers. But this pizza crust recipe is fairly fool proof. I've even experimented with substituting some of the white flour for wheat, and its still good. It was only recently, though, that I realized that how I was cooking the pizza made a big difference. In order to get that pizzeria taste and texture, you have to imitate the cooking method. Without having a brick fire oven in your house, the next best thing is a pizza stone, and high heat- broiling hot.

A pizza stone isn't a necessity--I would say using t he broiler and high heat makes the most difference-- but I think it helps give the crust a great texture. We received one from my Aunt as a wedding shower gift, and it was such a neat idea! We've used it so much over the years. You can use them for more than just pizzas, too. Baking bread on them is awesome too.

Anyway- here's how to create stuffed crust pizza.

For the dough:
1 packet yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup oil
3 cups flour

Combine all the ingredients but the flour, let sit for about 10 minutes. Then stir in the flour, one
cupful at a time. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic.

Allow to rise until doubled. Once dough has risen, preheat oven to highest heat setting (I used 475-500) with the pizza stone preheating in the oven. If you don't have a pizza stone, just cook it on a cookie sheet as normal, no need to preheat it. In the meantime, prepare your toppings and then get enough mozzarella sticks or similarly sliced pieces, to roll into the crust for stuffed crust.

Here's where it gets tricky. You want to have the crust rolled out ahead of time, into a circle, on top of something you can slide it off of (or lift it carefully and then place on hot pizza stone). I tried using an upside down cookie sheet covered in flour the first time. It worked but the pizza needed "fixed" after I slid it onto the pizza stone. Then I tried NOT doing it ahead of time and it was tricky too, because once I laid the dough on the hot pizza stone, the dough cooked so fast that before I could roll up the mozzarella sticks into the crust, it had already baked stiff! The first method seems to work better. I promise its worth the work. If you are doing the stuffed crust, make sure you leave the edges of the crust extra thick so you have enough to stretch and roll around the cheese. Work your way around and use mozzarella sticks cut in half so they bend into a circle shape easier. Just lay the cheese near the edge and roll/squish the dough around it and pinch to seal. Make sure you roll towards the inside of the pizza so if it does come unrolled, the cheese doesn't leak all over the oven.


Then add your toppings- we love white pizza, and I just use ranch dressing instead of pizza sauce spread over the top, then I add lots of chopped veggies and sometimes a Morningstar Farms sausage or bacon.

Once you're ready to put it into the oven, make sure the rack is up high, around 6 inches away from the top of the oven, and then set the setting on broil. This is essential. I tried getting a picture but its blurry because I had to do it quickly:

And then here's some pictures of the pizza after it came out of the oven (just about five minutes later! It really does cook that fast so keep a careful eye on it!)