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darwinian pizza at casa bettinelli
Inspired by Mrs. Darwin’s blogging her recipe for “Pizza Chez Darwin,“ I bought mozzarella cheese a couple of weeks ago and it then sat in the drawer waiting for me to be inspired to actually make the pizza. Then on Thursday afternoon I dusted off our pizza peel and baking stone (which I think we’ve only used once since we were married) and set to work. I ran into a few snags along the way, but mostly it was a good time. And I made some really good tasting pizza. Thanks, Mrs. D!!!
I opted to use our standing mixer rather than get my hands dirty kneading the dough. What actually happened was the dough never came together and I ended up turning it out and kneading it by hand anyway. I’m not sure if I measured wrong or if it was just that humid, but the dough was a sticky mess and I had to add a lot more flour before it got to a reasonable consistency. (I’m glad Dom was here to help me with the flour adding, because it was a very messy process.) But after that it rose beautifully and the final product had a great consistency and wonderful taste.
I also need to work on my pizza tossing skills. Most of my pizzas were only roundish and the final one just kept tearing and I finally gave up and let it be a lump. It was the only one to stick to the peel, go figure.
I didn’t get super creative in the area of toppings. I made three cheese pizzas, two pizzas with sliced pickled jalapeno peppers, and one pizza with some of the super-yummy, locally-made jalapeno pepper goat cheese we picked up at the farmer’s market on Saturday. Dom and Bella were perfectly happy with the offerings, though.
As promised, the ground flax seed yielded a crust with a nice nutty flavor. The semolina flour did its job in preventing sticking except for that fatal last pizza; but by that time I was just hot and tired and that probably had much to do with it.
I don’t think I’ll be doing this very often at least not in our current conditions. In the summer the kitchen really does heat up and it tends to be the warmest room in the house anyway, being too far away from any of the window ACs to really get cooled. But Bella was quite fascinated by the process and had fun playing with—and eating—a little ball of the dough.
More photos after the jump…
Jalapeno pizza using sliced pickled jalapenos was amazingly tasty. The pasta semolina flour went on the peel to keep the pizza from sticking as we slid it onto the stone in the oven.
This one had slices of jalapeno-cilantro goat cheese we picked up at the local farmer’s market.
Plain cheese pizza, but it was anything but plain.
Dom really enjoyed the pizza despite his expression. It’s how he reacts to being photographed during dinner.
Isabella obviously loooooovvvvvveeeed the pizza. NOM, NOM, NOM.
Melanie enjoys the fruits—or in this case, pizza—of her labor.
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