Thick Crust Pizza

Store bought dough, garden tomatoes, mozzarella cheese (lots of mozzarella cheese), dried basil and cracked black pepper.
Is your mouth watering yet?





I'll admit the crust was a tad thick and really puffed up. My choice of baking wear was my tart pan and that is the reason. Next time I will be sure to use a different vessel upon which to spread the dough and layer in all of the goodies. I spotted a 15 x 2 inch deep dish pan that is fairly inexpensive to purchase on line. Cost was $5.29.

• 1 bag pizza dough
• olive oil
• 6 - 8 oz. mozzarella, shredded (I had a hard mozzarella roll to use.)
• 2 - 3 large tomatoes sliced
• freshly ground black pepper
• dried basil - a few pinches
• cornmeal

1. In a glass bowl that has a bit of olive oil drizzled, add in your dough and move around to coat. Cover with plastic wrap until it doubles in bulk.
2. Preheat your oven to 450° F.
3. To your baking pan, drizzle with olive oil and spread it around with a paper towel. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of the pan.
4. Then, press the dough into a baking pan, pressing the dough up the sides of the pan.
5. If you are going to shred your own cheese, place it in the freezer for about 20 minutes as it will make the shredding a lot easier. Use a box grater.
6. Add in a good amount of shredded mozzarella over the crust and cracked black pepper on top of the cheese.
7. Add in the tomatoes, overlapping slightly as you go. Again, season with cracked black pepper on top of the tomatoes.
8. Top it off with more mozzarella cheese (the more the better), grind cracked pepper on the cheese and finally take pinches of dried basil and sprinkle over the cheese.
9. Drizzle just a bit of olive oil over the cheese - use it sparingly.
10. Bake for approximately 15-18 minutes until the cheese is golden brown and the crust although it may be thick it should be cooked.

Baking in the oven.............See how it rose above the tart pan.

 

A shot from above.

You can see how high the crust rose.

We dined by candlelight with cloth napkins. Something out of the everyday you know.

Despite the thick crust this pizza was packed with flavor. The garden tomatoes were juicy and flavorful. The two layers of cheese with the cracked pepper and that little bit of dried basil on the top layer as well made for one spectacular meal. This just goes to show that you can take something as simple as thick crust homemade pizza, add some candles, cloth napkins and have yourself a romantic setting. 

Buona Tavola - "good eating"