No Knead Pizza

Over the last couple of weeks I have started to make No Knead Bread every other day. Why? It is really tasty and takes no effort. Mix, let sit a day and bake. Nothing more, nothing less. Every time that I bite into the amazing crust of this bread, I think, this would be an awesome pizza crust. So, I made a pizza with it. How did it fare? Read on….

The crust browned nicely making a perfect base for the pizza.

No Knead Pizza

• 3 cups bread flour or all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons salt (depends on your taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon instant dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3/4 cup pizza sauce
• 10 oz cheese
• favorite toppings
• pizza stone
• pizza peel or flat cookie sheet to form the dough on.
  

This first part is exactly like the No Knead Bread recipe.

Mix the flour, salt and yeast into a bowl.  Remember, that a packet of yeast is actually 2 1/4 tsp.  So you only need 1/9th of the packet.  I know that it sounds weird, but you do not need any more yeast than that.  You can store the remaining yeast in the refrigerator for your next loaf of bread.

Mix in the water into the dough.  You want to add enough water to just get the flour moist.  You may need a little more, or a little less water depending on the humidity in your house.  For the most part, 1 1/2 cups of water works perfectly.  Once you have the water mixed in, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for 12-18 hours at room temperature.

Next flour your counter and turn the dough out onto it.  This is best done in the morning before you want to eat the pizza.  Divide the dough in half and form two dough balls. Make sure the dough is covered with flour and then place a cotton towel over the top of them.  Let rise for 2-4 hours.

I tried this dough with a pizza pan and it failed miserably.  The crust did not brown and the pizza was flavorless.  But, with a pizza stone it came out nice.  The stone allowed the crust to develop that nice brown crispy crust that No Knead Bread is known for.  So this will require a pizza stone and some sort of pizza peel.  Either a wooden peel or an upside down cookie sheet will work.

Preheat the oven as hot as it will go with the pizza stone on the lowest rack.  My oven goes to a toasty 550 degrees Fahrenheit.  Not too shabby.

Cover the peel/sheet in cornmeal or semolina and then form one of the dough balls into a pizza.  You can toss this dough or just press it into shape.  Next top it like you would normally top a pizza.  Make sure not to put too much sauce and too many toppings on the pizza.  The easiest way to make a pizza soggy, is to overload it.

Place the pizza in the oven on the pizza stone and cook for 10-14 minutes depending on the heat of your oven and the amount of toppings on the pizza.  When the crust is golden brown and delicious looking, remove it from the oven.

Cut and serve.

The crust got a delicious golden brown.  Overall the crunchiness of the crust was amazing.  The flavor was enhanced by the pizza stone, but overall it was lacking a bit compared to most crust.  However, the other crusts do not get this crunchy.  It is a personal preference sort of thing. Do you like a crispy crust pizza or do you want a softer crust with a tad more flavor.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I will definitely try it again.