Baking Partners Challenge : New York Style Pizza...

Its the 15th of the month and hence time to reveal this months Baking Partner's Bake !! 

and this month we baked........

.

.

taDaaaa...

Yes ...we baked this month 

      New York Style Pizza......

a thin crust pizza with the signature pizza sauce 

with toppings of our choice.

The recipes at hand were ....

• New York Style Pizza Crust from Feeling Foodish and New York Style Pizza Sauce from Seroius Eats as suggested by Pam of Living Rancho Deluxe
• New York Style Pizza from Serious Eats  as suggested by Archana of  Tangy Minds 
• New York Style Pizza from Pizza Making as suggested by Priya of Ennveetu Kitchen .

To say the truth though I was excited to make pizza,  I did not feel very challenged when the recipes were suggested. after all pizza is a weekly affair. so what could be so challenging about baking it.  neither the dough recipe nor the sauce recipe seemed challenging enough till i saw this video in Feeling Foodish...

and my reaction was.. oho.. so that is the challenge !! i played and replayed the video several times and tried my best to stretch the pizza dough like the chef. and i think i almost got it right the second time. though the pizza tasted great there are a few issues with my topping that i still need to work on. for starters i think i should stop using preshredded cheese because for whatever reason they tend to brown before the pizza crust is completely done... also i need to control myself when spreading the pizza sauce. somehow every time, i tend to get a little too generous while spreading the sauce on the crust and as a result my slices tend to be a little limp towards the center..

anyway i guess it'll take me a few more pizzas to make that ultimate thin crust pizza at home. however since the challenge things are definitely  looking up and i am hopeful that the next one might be the one !  Many thanks to Pam, Archana and Priya for the challenge and Swathi for initially such a lovely group !

now the recipe.  actually i did not stick to one recipe for the pizza. i made the pizza dough and pizza sauce following Serious Eats and for the final bake i followed the steps of Feeling Foodish..

New York Style Pizza 

ingredients 

for the pizza sauce

• 1 (28 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, grated
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
• 1 dried red chili, ground
• 1 teaspoon of dried basil
• 1 medium sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
• 1 teaspoon sugar

for the pizza dough (for two 14 inch pizza)

• 2 1/4 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting
• 2 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
• 4 1/2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 7.5 oz lukewarm water

for the topping

• preshredded mozzarella cheese from the freezer
• 1 thinly sliced onion(i used the one that was dipped in the pizza sauce)
• pepperoni 
• green olives

what i did

for the pizza sauce....

•  .. i first pulsed the can of tomatoes in the blender  it was smooth yet not smooth enough meaning there were tiny little chunks that you could feel with your fingers but they did not stare straight at your face.
• next i heated the butter and oil in a saucepan over medium heat. once the butter melted i added the garlic, oregano, chilies and salt to it and cooked until fragrant. i then added the pulsed tomatoes, basil, sugar and onion halves to the saucepan and reducing the heat (so that bubbles  barely break on the surface ) simmered and cooked the sauce for the next hour. 
• once the sauce reduced to almost half its volume i seasoned it with salt and switched off the heat. while i used some of the sauce right away i allowed the rest of it to cool completely. then removing the halved onions i poured the sauce in the containers and refrigerated it.

for the dough...

• ... i added all the ingredients to the bowl of my bread machine. set in on the dough cycle and let it run for about 2-3 minutes before the mixture formed a ball that rode around the bowl above the blade.  i then unplugged the machine and transferred the dough to a lightly floured surface. there, i kneaded the dough by hand for a couple of minutes until a smooth  ball formed that passed the window pane test....

• i then divided the dough into 2 equal parts, put them in zipper lock freezer bags and placed them in the refrigerator to rise.
• i baked the first one with pizza dough retarded in the refrigerator for 56 hours and baked the second one a day later(i.e with dough retarded for 78-80 hours in refrigerator). on both days, two hours  before baking i removed the dough from the refrigerator and allowed it to come to room temperature before working with it. 
• once the dough reached the room temperature i adjusted the oven rack with pizza stone to the middle position and preheated the oven to 500 degrees F.  next i shaped the dough into a ball and then as shown in the video above, stretched it first over a well floured surface and then between my hands to form the desired thin crust for the pizza.

• i then spread the sauce, the cheese and the toppings slide the pizza onto the baking stone and baked the pizza in the preheated oven for around 12 minutes...

   until the crust was puffed and golden brown and some of the cheese had brown spots(and in my case a little too many had it :( )...

so that was my pizza for Baking Parter's April-May Challenge. not perfect but super yummy !!

before you hop over to gawk at what the other baking partners have baked, check out these yummy delights from the past challenges... aren't you tempted to bake all these goodies and more for your family and friends. then. why wait. just shoot a mail to Swathi of Zesty South Indian Kitchen at favoriterecieps12 (at) gmail (dot)com  and get started on the May-June Challenge...