Foolproof, no-skill required pan pizza
It's a pan pizza that requires no kneading, no rolling, no stretching, no special equipment or experience whatsoever, just a scale, a bowl, a pan, and bit of time.
Make the No-Knead Dough
Combine dough ingredients. For each 10-inch pan pizza, I use 200 grams bread flour, 5 grams salt, 2 grams yeast, 135 grams water, and 4 grams extra-virgin olive oil. Just put it in a bowl, stir it up with your hand or a spoon until there's no dry flour left, and let it be.
Cover and rise
Cover tightly in plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature overnight. No kneading required!
The next day...
The next day it should look something like this. Rap the bowl and the whole thing will deflate. This is ok.
Dump
Dump it all out onto a floured surface, then divide it into balls (the number of balls will depend on exactly how many you planned for at the start)
Oil a skillet or cake pan
Spread olie oil in a 10-inch cast iron skillet or round cake pan and place a dough ball in the middle. You can repeat for multiple pizzas, or store the doughballs to be used later. Up to 3 days in the fridge (in a sealed zipperlock bag), or indefinitely in the freezer (in a sealed freezer bag).
Coat
Rub the dough ball around and flip it a couple times until it's completely coated in oil and the oil completely coats the bottom and sides of the pan. Cover in plastic, and let it sit for another couple hours without touching it. Watch som Breaking Bad, rescue some princesses, plan your zombie apocalypse emergency supply kit, whatever. Just leave it alone until...
Spread
...it spreads out on its own. The dough should naturally stretch out until it fills the pan. This takes about two hours.
Dock
Dock the dough with your fingertips to get rid of the super-large bubbles, but be gentle. you don't want to get rid of all of them.
Lift
Lift the edges gently to allow any trapped bubbles underneath to escape.
Get your toppings ready
Have your toppings assembled and ready to go.
Sauce
Cover the pie with sauce, going all the way to the edges. You can use store-bought sauce, or homemade (my go-to is this one:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza-sauce.html).
Cheese
Cover with cheese, going all the way to the edges. Why all the way? Because as that cheese melts, it drips down the cracks, turning into crispy, browned shards of awesome. That's why.
Add more toppings
I'm using some slab bacon cut into lardons and applied raw. They'll cook in the oven.
And more
Pepperoni. This is my favorite from Vermont Smoke and Cure (
http://www.vtsmokeandcure.com/). It rules.
Grate some hard cheese, but don't add yet!
Grate some hard cheese, but set it aside for now.
Get ready to...
Finish off the pie with a drizzle of oil, and whatever other toppings you want. Here I've got some homemade pickled banana peppers and some fresh basil.
Bake
Bake the pizza in a 550°F oven directly in the skillet or pan until golden brown on top and sizzling around the edges, about 15 minutes.
Now the cheese
NOW add that grated hard cheese. I like the contrast that the bubble brown mozzarella and the sharp parmesan or pecorino romano has.
Check out the air bubbles!
Perfect hole structure, with absolutely no kneading or shaping!
The bottom
The bottom ends up golden brown and crisp like it's been fried, because... it has. It's been frying in that olive oil the whole time. It's crisp as a cracker and infused throughout with olive oil flavor.
Serve
A pie is big enough to serve 2 normal people.