My First Daring Baker’s Challenge! Pizza!

Print Print | Print Email this to a friend | October 29, 2008
Filed Under Daring Baker Challenge, bread

This is my very first Daring Baker’s Challenge. I had a good laugh when I found out that we’d be baking pizza from Peter Reinhart’s book The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. As you might imagine I bake every day from my own book, but It has been many years since I’ve made pizza or bread from a traditional recipe. I must admit it was great fun! It took a lot longer than I have become accustomed to, but it was a joy to knead the dough, satisfying to see it rising on my counter and as you can see I actually spun it over my head. The dough is very similar in taste to the olive oil dough (page 134) in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I ended up making them side by side. I’ll leave it up to you to do the same and tell me what you think!

I made a southwestern shrimp pizza using some of the Hatch’s Chillies my friend Jen roasted and gave to me, along with grilled corn and goat cheese. I also made a purple potato and bacon pizza with onions I sauteed in the bacon fat. I called Jen as they were coming out of the oven and we had a fabulous lunch!

The one thing I did differently from our book with my olive oil dough, was let it sit on the counter as I preheated the oven, about 40 minutes. I let Reinhart’s sit for the full 2 hours that he asks for. In the end they both had a lovely crisp, airy crust, which I love!

When making pizza it is important to have these basic things:

Baking Stone

Oven Thermometer

Pizza Peel

Preheat the oven to 550° or as hot as your oven will go with a pizza stone on the bottom rack. Having it on the bottom will allow the bottom crust to get nice and crisp without burning your toppings.

The Purple Potato, Bacon, Mozzerella, Rosemary and onions sauteed in Bacon Fat Pizza!

The potatoes I had roasted in olive oil, salt and pepper for dinner the night before and were leftovers.

Toss or roll out your dough so that it is nice and thin, about 1/8-inch or thinner. Put on your toppings and drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with course salt.

Bake for about 10 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese hot and bubbly.

For the Shrimp, Grilled Corn and Goat Cheese Pizza, I peeled the shrimp, cut them in half lengthwise, tossed them with the chopped up chillies (you determine how HOT you like it!) and salt and pepper.

I leave the shrimp raw, because it is cut in half it will bake perfectly and not be tough.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and shrimp is pink! Enjoy!

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Comments

51 Responses to “My First Daring Baker’s Challenge! Pizza!”

10/29/08 4:17 pm	Peter said... Ahahaha, best pizza money shot!
10/29/08 4:17 pm	kellypea said... LOVE that photo. Show off! And congrats on your first “challenge.” Both of your pizzas have amazing ingredients on them — grilled corn always gets my attention and with roasted chilies? Nice. The potatoes are beautiful! What a great idea. I’m smiling about the opportunity to do some side by side testing of yours and Peter’s doughs. Since I’ve tried your olive oil dough, I can say that it is very good, and quite a bit less involved, so highly recommend it. Mmmm….
10/29/08 4:21 pm	Aimee said... That is awesome! I have always wanted to do that with pizza dough.
10/29/08 4:30 pm	Y said... Yay to your first DB challenge! Love that shot of you tossing the dough – I certainly didn’t have a big smile on my face when I was attempting it!
10/29/08 4:40 pm	Nicole said... Great pizza tossing shot!! Mine did not work! I couldn’t seem to get a shot with my dough in the air!
10/29/08 4:58 pm	Amanda said... You look at you, the pizza pro! I swear, that pizza shot should be the cover for your next cookbook
10/29/08 5:00 pm	Caron Golden said... How cool, Zoe! You look like a natural! Will you do it again? Caron
10/29/08 5:03 pm	Joey Biscotti said... Wow! Those are beautiful and i LOVE the purple potatoes! such a great splash of color!
10/29/08 5:12 pm	robin @ caviar and codfish said... My word! That looks downright dangerous! That southwestern shrimp pizza is calling my name.
10/29/08 5:20 pm	Shari said... I love that photo of you tossing the pizza dough. You’re a culinary wizard! And now I know what to put on my Christmas wish list: Baking Stone, Oven Thermometer, and Pizza Peel. Thanks!
10/29/08 5:27 pm	Maggie Weakley said... Wow, those look amazing!!!! My mouth is just watering.
10/29/08 5:46 pm	Caitlin said... LOVE the action shot. Nice. And everything is better when cooked in bacon fat – yum!
10/29/08 6:21 pm	Hypnosis said... Healthy AND fun – how’s that for a winning combination?
10/29/08 6:54 pm	Cindy Ruth said... Your pizzas look great, and as always, the photos are also fabulous. The toppings you used sound really good-I love purple potatoes. I’ll have to try your recipe for the pizza dough and let you know how it turns out.
10/29/08 7:15 pm	Lori said... Love that picture of you tossing the pizza, looks like you were having so much fun!And the pizza looks nice and round. And oh your toppings sound incredible!
10/29/08 7:24 pm	Lesley said... wow, your pizzas are so nice, I love the potato/bacon one. There’s a bar in my town that serves something similar, w/ sour cream. What a splurge!! Your pictures are great, too.
10/29/08 7:30 pm	maris said... It’s official. You should open a restaurant!
10/29/08 7:47 pm	Dragon said... You toss photo is my favourite one yet. You look like you’re really enjoying yourself. I love your pizza toppings. The purple potato one is inspired! Great job!
10/29/08 8:26 pm	kk said... Oh!! I’m so jealous, I wish I could toss like you!! I think I got my dough to leave my hands for about 1/2 second!! Your pizzas look great! Welcome to daring bakers! =P
10/29/08 9:18 pm	Mary said... Cheers on your first challenge…it looks phenomenal. And btw…I use your cookbook quite often as well. So often in fact that I recently had to make croutons from an entire loaf because I have so much bread coming out of the oven.
10/29/08 9:44 pm	Ruth said... Can you give tossing lessons wow your toss is amazing. I really want a slice of your shrimp and corn pizza. Welcome to the DBs
10/30/08 12:27 am	Christy said... Very, very nice first challenge!! Awesome photo of you tossing the dough! That purple potato you used looks really intriguing!!
10/30/08 1:53 am	Nabeela said... Love the tossing picture
10/30/08 2:10 am	Rosa said... Congrats on your first challenge! You did a great job! Your pizzas all look fantastic and hyper scrumptious! Cheers, Rosa
10/30/08 3:33 am	HoneyB said... I want to eat at your house!!! I love that shrimp pizza!
10/30/08 5:37 am	plutosangel said... I just love your blog! I’m going to try out the goat cheese and shrimp topping.. looks scrumptious p.s. how do u manage to make your pizza dough fly without ending up looking like a human calzone?
10/30/08 7:13 am	Lindsey said... I love the purple potatoes in there! That first one definitely looks like a winner…and there’s nothing better than onions cooked in bacon fat!
10/30/08 7:50 am	Susan/Wild Yeast said... This looks like the best lunch ever. How nice to have you in the DBs!
10/30/08 7:54 am	Julie said... The Pizza looks awesome! Seeing your webpage is always a highlight to my day:)
10/30/08 8:14 am	jillian said... The shrimp pizza looks especially good! I would have never thought to put raw shrimp on a pizza. Great idea!
10/30/08 8:24 am	Jude said... Such beautiful pizzas, Zoe. I especially like the tossing picture. Nice capture. Welcome to Daring Bakers!
10/30/08 8:50 am	CookiePie said... Your pizzas look fabulous!!! Welcome to the Daring Bakers – I’m really looking forward to seeing your interpretations of the recipes every month. My first cookbook is coming out next fall — any advice?
10/30/08 1:40 pm	cakebrain said... Whoa! Great height there, Zoe! I love purple potatoes but never thought to put them on pizzas!
10/30/08 4:15 pm	Nichole said... Nice toss!
10/30/08 4:37 pm	zoe said... Thank you all for the great encouragement on my very first try at the Daring Baker Challenge. It was great fun! Thanks, Zoë
10/30/08 6:39 pm	Kristen said... That looks so great Zoe! And ironically I’d been planning on pulling the olive oil dough out of my freezer for dinner tomorrow night. Your post gives me a chance to ask 2 questions that have burbled in the back of my brain: 1)Oven thermometer- despite your book’s good advice, I’ve been limping along without one. I did some research on what one to get, but I couldn’t find an unqualified good recommendation. So I was really pleased to see your link to the Taylor Oven Guide – is that what you use? Do you have any problem with the numbers wiping off if you clean it? That’s the biggest complaint about it that gave me pause. 2)How do you get pizza dough to stretch out? I love the olive oil dough from your book, but always have trouble getting the dough to stretch – it springs back. Any thoughts? Keep on giving us such good cooking advice!
10/30/08 8:26 pm	zoe said... Hi Kristen, Great questions! So glad you are using the olive oil dough. The oven thermometer I use is a Taylor but not this exact one. They use this one at the school I teach in and I love it. It hangs from the rack and stays out of the way. Mine is the round type that either hangs too low or falls off and through the rack where it can’t be read, useless! I’ve had problems with candy thermometers and washing the numbers off, but not oven thermometers. I rarely have to wash mine. 2, If your dough is not stretching out and is just springing back at you it is because the gluten is all excited. The gluten gets more excited the more you try to work with it, if you just let it rest for 5-10 minutes on the counter it will relax ans let you stretch it out. As I mentioned in this post, I let the dough ball sit on the counter as the oven was preheating and it was nice and soft and pliable when I was ready to toss it. I hope this helps! Let me know. Thanks, Zoë
10/30/08 11:00 pm	katie said... Wow your pizzas look amazing! It was my first DB as well. Although we weren’t quite so professional looking tossing the dough!
10/31/08 5:41 am	food lover said... the photo is priceless, and the pizza looks incredible! Thanks for stopping by my blog, btw. Happy Halloween!
10/31/08 7:10 am	Eileen said... Wow, does your pizza ever look wonderful! Plus, great photo of tossing the pizza dough.
10/31/08 10:48 am	Cora/Cora Cooks said... That’s an amazing pizza toss and beautiful pizzas – can’t wait to try the shrimp.
10/31/08 12:54 pm	clumbsycookie said... Love the picture of you tossing! I thought the purple potato was chocolate, lol! They both look wonderful! Welcome to the group!
10/31/08 2:43 pm	Aran said... what a great toss zoe! and the pizzas looks AMAZING!!
10/31/08 7:05 pm	Melissa said... Great photo!!!
10/31/08 8:57 pm	John (Eat4Fun) said... Wow! Amazing pizzas and some mad tossing skills! Congrats on your first DB Challenge!
11/2/08 9:10 pm	Regina said... Superbly creative pizzas! Love how you utilized bacon fat – it can make almost anything taste good.
11/3/08 10:32 pm	Big Boys Oven said... I love seeing you having the pizza dough flying! such a thrilling pizza you had there!
11/3/08 11:25 pm	Vera said... Welcome to DB! The pizzas look delicious, Zoe! And what a toss!
11/3/08 11:59 pm	Tartelette said... Welcome to the DB Zoe! Great pizza tossing skills and both pizza look absolutely amazing!
11/7/08 5:32 pm	Andrea said... Awesome toss, and your pizzas look terrific. That potato pizza really caught my eye, love the purple potatoes. Welcome to the Daring Bakers!
11/11/08 10:43 am	Mari said... Fabulous flavor combos! I look forward to watching this space in the future! Welcome to Daring Bakers!