Cast Iron Pan Pizza

In this Instructable, I will show you how to make delicious pan pizza in your home oven! Making pizza is time consuming but not all that difficult, as long as you know the basics of cooking. I learned to make pizza by following Joshua Weissman's recipe, and then I adapted it to fit what I had on hand. This recipe makes two pizzas, approximately 11 in diameter, however, in the pictures, the recipe is tripled (because I'm feeding 11 people) so it looks like a lot more.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

2.5 cups flour (380g) half whole wheat, half white

1 cup warm water (245g)

1.5 tsp yeast (5g)

2 tsp sugar (10g)

1.25 tsp salt (6g)

For the sauce:

28 oz can peeled tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

2 tsp olive oil

Salt to taste

Sugar to taste

Toppings:

Mozzarella cheese

Italian sausage

Bacon

Pepperoni

Anything you want

Garlic Brush:

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic

Large pinch of salt, plus a pinch of Italian seasoning

The first step is to make the dough. Preheat your oven and pan(s) to 500 fahrenheit. Then, in a measuring cup, mix the water, yeast and sugar together, and set aside. Now, you can use measuring cups and measure your ingredients by volume, but using a digital scale is much more accurate and will yield more consistent results. In a stand mixer (or a large bowl if you are doing it by hand) mix the flour and salt. Once the water and yeast have begun bubbling, turn your mixer on low and slowly and add the water. The dough should be very sticky at first, but that is what you want. Once the dough has formed a ball, knead for about 3 min (5 or 6 if you're doing it by hand or using wheat flour) Then, grease a bowl with olive oil, put it in, and let rise covered with a damp towel for 1 hour.

Now for the sauce. In my opinion, unless you buy really good peeled tomatoes, it's hard to beat pre-made pizza sauce. However, if you want to make it yourself, simply add all the ingredients together in a blender, (make sure you drain the tomatoes) and blend until everything is uniform. You can then cook it down to make it a little thicker, but you don't have to.

For the garlic brush, mince the garlic (or use garlic powder) and mix all the ingredients together.

After your dough has risen for one hour, or until doubled in size, cut it into two pieces (in my case six, but two if your are doing this times one) and shape into balls. Then let them rise for another 30 minutes. This is a good time to cook your toppings. Always cook meat toppings thoroughly before putting them on pizza. Once your dough has risen, shape it into pizzas by punching the dough into a circle, and then stretching it out, making sure to leave a crust. You'll want the pizza to be the same diameter as your pan. Now, pull your pan out of the oven, dump a generous amount of olive oil into the pan, and place your crust into it, It will sizzle, and that is what you want, because this will give you a firm, crispy and delicious, but not burnt crust. Now you add your sauce, cheese, and toppings. Bake at 500 degrees fahrenheit for 8 to 10 minutes. As soon as you pull them out, brush the crust with the olive oil mixture (This adds so much flavor!) Let cool, and enjoy!