sprinklefingers

oh sweet lord, i had to go to ikea today.
have you been there lately? that place - especially at back to school time -  makes me completely crazy. i honestly witnessed at least 4 young girls crying over dorm room furniture. every time i go to ikea SWEAR i will not go back, and today i MEAN it. no more, ikea! no more!

the bright spot of today? other than the frozen yogurt topped with toffee that i ate? the fact that i’m about to share with you a pretty amazing pizza dough recipe. finally.

yes, i’ve posted about pizza once before, but that was a long time ago. i can post more than once about pizza. yes. i. can. shush, i can!

okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk pizza dough. i love dough with at least a small percentage of the flour being whole wheat. i like the texture and flavor it brings to the pizza. i like that the dough is a bit more hearty and (maybe just in my mind) easier to roll/stretch/pull. and i like that it makes me feel less guilty when i feed pizza to my kid.

so, without further ado - the only pizza dough i ever make anymore, period:

whole wheat pizza dough
adapted from pizza by weinstein & scarbrough

makes 2 pounds of dough - or 2 pizzas or 8 individual pizzas

you need:

• 1 1/2 cups 110 degree water
• 1 T plus 1 t active dry yeast
• 2 t sugar or 2 t honey
• 1 t kosher salt
• 11 1/3 oz whole wheat flour
• 5 7/8 oz AP flour
• 1/4 cup canola oil

make the dough:

1. pour the water into the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the hook attachment. sprinkle in the yeast, sugar (or honey) and salt. stir. wait 5 minutes. if mixture is bubbly, proceed. if it fails to bubble, start over with newly opened yeast.
2. add the flours & oil to the mixer bowl. stir on low until combined, then stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl.
3. turn the mixer to just below medium speed and mix between 6-8 minutes. if you  notice that your dough is a sticky mess, add in extra AP flour, one teaspoon at a time until the dough is no longer sticky (just watch that you don’t add too much!)
4. when the dough is a smooth mass, scrape it out of the mixer bowl into a clean bowl that you’ve rubbed with a bit of canola oil. smooth it out a bit if it needs it. flip it around a few times so that it’s evenly coated in the oil.
5. cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit somewhere warm for around 1.5 hours.
6. after this first rise your dough is ready to use (remember, it makes two pizzas.) you can also divide it into two equal portions and store in plastic bags in the fridge until you’re ready to make pizza…it will do very well if you keep it in the fridge a few days before you use it.

this pizza dough is so easy. and very delicious.

first, you can make it ahead. once you’ve let it rise for the hour or so, you can use it straight away. great!

but even better than that - you can prepare it up to that point and then simply divide, store in plastic bags and refrigerate. the flavor will develop and you’ll have pizza dough in your fridge for use during the week. just let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes until you’re ready to roll/stretch it out.

and - depending on your schedule - even better than refrigerating it: freezing it! pack in plastic bags and freeze. when you plan on pizza for dinner simply pull the dough from the freezer and let thaw in the fridge all day. by the time dinner prep rolls around, it’s all ready.

refrigerate or freeze it, and have pizza anytime. really, there’s no excuse for you to not have spare pizza dough in the freezer. i am as sure about this as i am sure of my dislike of ikea at back to school time.