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Basic Pizza Dough and Freezing Tips
Posted By Vardhini On January 26, 2014 @ 11:52 pm In American,Baking,Bread,Gallery,How to's,Kid Friendly,Main Dish | 5 Comments
This is my current go-to recipe for pizza dough. I normally make the dough in bulk and keep in fridge for a couple of days. Of course we were not going to eat pizza again in two to three days and I had to find different ways to keep the dough. The next method was to bake the pizza slightly and then freeze the discs. This worked wonders while breaking my head on what to pack for kids lunch. My kids loved their pizza and to cut down the extra work of topping the pizza in the busy morning, I decided to top it as normal and then freeze it.
It might sound like a simple task to top the pizza, but when combined with the zillion other things in the morning, everything becomes a chore. When topped and frozen, it is just a matter of preheating the oven and popping the pizza directly from freezer to oven. This is useful for not just lunch boxes but also for those crazy week nights when your kids have a lot of practices or activities and you are just tired dropping and picking them off from various destinations. I love homemade pizza because I can add my favorite toppings and also add minimal cheese since I am not a big fan of cheese.
Looks like my daughter might slowly follow my footsteps since she was asking if she could throw away the cheese on the pizza. Now the pizza was just a plain cheese pizza and it is no longer a pizza with no cheese. Anyway I am happy as long as she gets something in her little tummy. So friends, make extra dough and freeze for later when possible and use the frozen pizzas within three months. Off to the recipe. Recipe adapted slightly from here.
Basic pizza dough.
Make a dough with the mentioned ingredients. Place dough in an oiled bowl and allow to rise. When doubled punch it down and allow to rise again.
Form balls of dough and roll into circles. If using them right away top as you would normally and bake in a 450F preheated oven for about 20 min for the mini pizzas. This dough yields about 8 mini pizzas.
If freezing for later, bake the rolled dough for about 3 - 5 minutes until it looks a bit puffy. Allow to cool and then top as you would normally; place on a baking sheet and freeze for about 3 hours uncovered. Then remove from freezer and cover with plastic wrap (clingwrap).
Cover again with foil or place in a ziploc bag for later. When ready to use remove the clingwrap and place the pizza directly from freezer in a preheated 450F oven and bake until done.
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