Party Pizza

My nephew graduates from high school today! Sure, I’ll be celebrating via Zoom, but whatever. This calls for a party, and a party calls for pizza. 

My version is adapted from this award-winning King Arthur recipe:

Crispy Cheesy Pan Pizza | King Arthur Baking

The original recipe is very good, but we wanted something a little more traditional. I kept the dough method but modified the rest. I use a standard pizza pan (works very well), stretch the dough out to ~14” and increase the toppings by a factor of roughly two. This way isn’t as fluffy as the original recipe, but there’s more pizza:)

See the original recipe for instructions and helpful pictures. It’s easy but the crust takes a little upfront fiddly time, so I make four times the amount, split the dough after the initial rise, and freeze the extras.

This is our usual, Butter Chicken Pizza. As always, topping ingredients and amounts are flexible.

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Ingredients

Quadruple Batch of Crust

• 960g All-Purpose Flour, King Arthur if you can get it
• 17g salt
• 6.28g instant yeast or active dry yeast
• 680g lukewarm water
• 52g olive oil

Toppings for One Pizza

• 300g mozzarella, grated (about 1 1/4 cups, loosely packed)
• 200g Butter Chicken or other sauce, tweaked with a little soy sauce and balsamic vinegar
• 200g cooked chicken, drained and shredded
• wilted, chopped spinach and mushrooms or other veg, a handful or two
• freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
• olive oil for the pan

Instructions

Crust:

• Place the flour, salt, yeast, water, and olive oil in a large mixing bowl.
• Stir everything together to make a shaggy, sticky mass of dough with no dry patches of flour. This should take 1-2 minutes by hand. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to gather the dough into a rough ball; cover the bowl.
• After 5 minutes, uncover the bowl and reach your wet hand down between the side of the bowl and the dough, as though you were going to lift the dough out. Instead of lifting, stretch the bottom of the dough up and over its top. Repeat three more times, turning the bowl 90° each time.
• Re-cover the bowl, and after 5 minutes do another fold. Wait 5 minutes and repeat; then another 5 minutes, and do a fourth and final fold. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest, undisturbed, for 40 minutes.
• Split into four parts of ~425g each. Place into oiled containers (I use oiled takeout dishes.)
• If using soon, refrigerate for a minimum of 12 hours, or up to 72 hours. It’ll rise slowly as it chills, developing flavor; this long rise will also add flexibility to your schedule. (A 72 hour rise will require a largish container.)
• To save for longer, seal each container in a ziplock bag and freeze. The night before you want to use it, move one batch from the freezer to the fridge.

Assemble:

• Crust: About 3 hours before you want to serve your pizza, prepare your pan. Pour 1 1/2 tablespoons (18g) olive oil onto pizza pan or cookie sheet. Spread the oil across the bottom.
• Transfer the dough to the pan and turn it once to coat both sides with the oil. Press the dough to the edges of the pan, dimpling it using the tips of your fingers in the process. The dough may start to resist and shrink back; that’s OK, just cover it and let it rest for about 15 minutes, then repeat the dimpling/pressing. At this point the dough should reach the edges of the pan; if it doesn’t, give it one more 15-minute rest before dimpling/pressing a third and final time.
• Cover the crust and let rise for ~2-2.5 hours at room temperature.
• About 30 minutes before baking, place one rack toward the bottom of the oven and preheat to 450°F.
• Toppings: once the dough is risen, sprinkle about three-quarters of the mozzarella over the entire crust. Spoon a spiral of sauce from the center outward, over the cheese. Laying the cheese down first will prevent the sauce from seeping into the crust and making it soggy. Sprinkle on the chicken, any veg, and remaining mozzarella.
• Bake the pizza for 20-22 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and the bottom and edges of the crust are a rich golden brown (use a spatula to check the bottom). More and/or moister toppings will take longer to cook.
• Remove the pizza from the oven and slide the pizza onto a cutting board or other heatproof surface. Cut and remove extra slices to a cooling rack to avoid sogginess.

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