Pizzafest '08

On Friday, my parents visited us for a night of pizza crust experimentation, and the findings were very exciting. Um, to me.

I set out to make two pizza's, but ended up with enough dough to make three - this was not a problem. For the first pizza, I used Helen Rennie's pizza dough recipe (which is modified from Rose Levy Beranbaum's original recipe). As promised on her website, it was insanely easy. No mixer, no food-processor, no kneading, no dirty anything (it was cooked on parchment paper). Even better, my 10-year struggle to make thin-crust pizza is now over. This crust was thin and crispy, and lacked the stretch-resistant gluten that I usually fight against in my usual dough. I topped it with her tomato sauce recipe, along with some cheese and sauteed portobello mushrooms. It was a hit.


Pizza's #2 and #3 were made with Giada DeLaurentis' dough recipe. I made this dough easily in my food processor, and it rose like a champ. It was easy to roll out, and was also very good. But not as good (or quick or clean) as Helen's, and it lacked a bit of character because the dough was rolled. I topped this pizza with pesto, tomatoes, mozzarella and basil — mom's favorite.


The last pizza, which also used Giada's crust, was topped with prosciutto and pineapple. (This would have been better if Price Chopper's prosciutto had any flavor!)


Safe to say, all of my pizzas from today on will be using Helen's recipe. So liberating!