#header-inner {background-position: center !important; width: 100% !important;}

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough



Last week at work I had a lunch meeting in which they served pizza. Unfortunately, my slice of vegetable pizza was nothing to write home about, but it did get me craving some good pizza! With a little bit of extra time on my hands one night, I decided to whip up a double batch of pizza dough to freeze so that we could make some homemade pizza and calzones in the upcoming weeks.

Pizza is still one of those foods that I love to eat when I'm out, but I'm also discovering that pizza at home isn't half bad. About a year ago I remember buying the occasional frozen pizza for nights when I didn't feel like cooking...about six months ago I found myself making homemade pizza with store-bought Pillsbury crust...and in these past few months I've discovered that the ultimate "at-home" pizza includes homemade crust. Don't get me wrong, Pillsbury crust is perfectly acceptable! I just get a little extra satisfaction when I make my dough from scratch ;)

I made this whole wheat dough using whole wheat flour and bread flour. I've never used bread flour in pizza dough before and I was curious to see how this turned out. If you're wondering-stay tuned for my upcoming post on what we did with some of our dough! I doubled this recipe to come up with 5 dough balls, 4 of which are patiently waiting in my freezer for when the next craving hits! (FYI: to freeze, wrap individual dough chunks in plastic wrap and place in a freezer bag. When you're ready to use them, let it thaw overnight in the fridge and roll out into a crust the next day!)

(I split it originally into 4 chunks, but then separated the one on the far right into 2 when I froze them!)

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
adapted slightly from this recipe

Ingredients:
2 packages active dry yeast
2 cups warm water
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:
1. Dissolve yeast in the warm water and set aside.
2. Using a mixer (and a dough hook), combine the flours, sugar, honey, and salt. Mix to combine.
3. Add the liquid ingredients and mix on low until dough begins to clumb around the dough hook.
4. Remove the dough and knead on a clean, floured surface for 4-5 minutes (because I doubled the recipe, I had to split the dough into two sections and kneaded them separetely)
5. Once the dough ball is smooth and elastic, place it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover. Allow it to rise for one hour.
6. Separate dough into as many portions as desired and refrigerate or freeze (depending on when you plan to use it).