Free Inquiry #2: Cailey’s Pizza

This second recipe was inspired by my incredible sister: Cailey. She is currently finishing law school in Kamloops for her third degree and has an extremely bright future ahead of her. She made these for our family one dinner when she was visiting this summer. I don’t know for sure if this recipe is hers to claim as the recipe was from one of her friends she met at school. That being said, ever since we made these, I got her to send me the recipe and I have made some of my own adjustments. These pizzas are slowly become a weekly to bi-weekly favorite in my household and the hot honey is seriously addicting. Similar to the burritos described in my first inquiry post, these pizzas have endless adaptations that can be made. As always, I will add my favorite adaptations at the end of the blog but I encourage you to experiment with your own. Please comment if you decide to make these and any adaptations, comments, concerns that you may have. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• All purpose flour
• Quick rise, instant yeast (I use Fleischmann’s instant yeast)
• Olive oil
• Water (Room Temperature)
• Sugar
• Mozzarella – grated
• Hot calabrese salami – sliced
• Pepperoni sticks – sliced
• Onion – thinly sliced
• Fresh jalapeno – thinly sliced or Pickled jalapeno
• Tomato sauce
• Honey
• Chili flakes
• Cayenne pepper
• Apple cider vinegar
• Oregano
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Fresh parmesan – grated

Servings

This recipe is optimized to make 2 medium crust pizzas or 3 thin crust pizzas and designed to fit on a regular sized cookie sheet. Feel free to adjust recipe as needed.

Instructions – Pizza Dough (~40 minutes)

1. Start by getting the pizza dough prepared. Combine 3 tsp yeast with 1 & 1/3 cups of room temperature water (should not feel warm or cold if ran over your wrist) and 2 tsp of sugar into a large bowl. Whisk gently and let this sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture has bubbled.
2. Add 1/2 cup olive oil to the bubbled yeast mixture and whisk gently to combine.
3. Add 4 cups of flour and 2 tsp of salt and mix until a smooth dough has formed. If the dough is too dry you can add a splash of room temperature water or a pinch of flour if it is too wet. Note: The only adjust the moisture level of the dough after you have kneaded it, the kneading process will smoothen out the dough considerably.
4. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it is smooth and elastic. This should take approximately 5 minutes.
5. Place the kneaded dough in a olive oil-lubricated bowl and cover with a towel.
6. Let the dough rise for at least 30 minutes. If your oven has a “proof” option, I would recommend using that to keep the temperature constant. Otherwise room temperature (~20°C) works just as well.

Instructions – Pizza Prep (~30 minutes)

1. While the dough is rising, we will start making the hot honey. Add about 1/2 cup of honey to a small pot on medium-low heat.
2. Once the honey has melted, add about 1 tbs of chili flakes, 1 tsp of cayenne pepper, and 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar and stir well. Let this sit on low to medium-low heat until you are ready to serve. Mix occasionally. Add more chili flakes or cayenne depending on desired spice level. The longer you can let this sit, the better.
3. Prepare your pizza toppings. Grate mozzarella cheese, cut onion thinly, cut jalapenos, cut your pepperoni sticks into thin slices, and cut your spicy salami. Set aside until you are ready to form your pizza.
4. For the sauce, I like to use whatever tomato sauce I have in the pantry. This time I had some sweet basil pasta sauce. Add about 1-2 cups of tomato sauce to a glass container. To the sauce, add 2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, and 2 tsp oregano. Blend with a hand blender until smooth.
5. Preheat oven to 400°C.
6. Depending how long you were able to let the dough sit for, it should have at least increased or doubled in size. Split the dough equally in two and roll out to desired shape. If you want thinner crust you may split into more than 2 halves.
7. Add your rolled dough to a pizza tray (cookie sheet or pizza stone) and make sure it is greased by spreading a bit of olive oil on the base. This prevents the dough from sticking and ensures it gets nice and crispy.
8. Add pizza sauce, cheese, and desired toppings.
9. Cook for 10-15 minutes at 400°C. Check occasionally to ensure the crust does not burn (all ovens are different).
10. **OPTIONAL:** Broil the pizza for 1 minute to get the toppings nice and crisp.
11. Serve with hot honey and freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Adaptations

Similar to my burrito recipe, there are so many ways you can change pizzas to make them your own. Here is a selection of my favorite adaptations to this recipe but remember that the options are really endless.

• Try a barbecue chicken style pizza. For this I mix about 2/3 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce with 1/3 cup tomato sauce. Season with the same seasonings and blend until smooth. Top the pizza with mozzarella, red onion, green peppers, and barbecued chicken.
• If you are vegetarian, try a vegetarian pizza with olives, onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, and mozzarella.
• If you don’t like many toppings, try a classic margherita pizza. Add tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, cook and top with fresh basil.
• My best friend jack is lactose intolerant and makes these with his favorite dairy-free cheese.
• This dough works well with other types of flours, feel free to change it up depending on what you like best and any restrictions you may have.
• If you really don’t have time to make your own dough, your local grocery store should have some premade dough that you can roll out. I have found that I enjoy making my own dough and it usually tastes better!

Pictures

Reflections

This is such a fun recipe to make, although slightly more preparation than than O’s burritos. When you tell your friends that you are making your own pizzas, most people assume that you probably bought a frozen pizza, or you bought some pre-cooked pizza crust and added toppings. Likewise, if you ever thought about making your own dough, you might be intimidated thinking it would take too long to make. I think this is partially a myth. Making your own dough can be really complex or really easy (like in this example) but there is no reason to be intimidated by making this simple recipe. I hope that I have shown how easy it is to make your own dough at home with limited ingredients and time. I absolutely love this recipe, I like changing my toppings and I’m addicted to the hot honey. Please don’t skip on making this recipe and make the hot honey because you will not regret it. Thank you Cailey for the inspiration on this one!