Homemade Pizza

Welcome to the very first installment of Pinned It, Did It.

That's right.  I actually made something I pinned to Pinterest.  Please. Hold your applause.

As I originally said, one of my goals here is to blog my attempts at pinned stuff greatness. I started small with homemade pizza.  At least I thought I started small... what. a. production.  I'm a bona fide comedy of errors.

I almost made this pizza on a whim last week but one glance at the recipe brought me back to reality.  That reality is, I don't cook and I certainly cannot cook on a whim.  Active dry yeast?  This called for a Skype conference with Lianne (owner of pizza pin).  She confirmed that I could purchase this product in a regular grocery store. I found it! I splurged on the 3 pack, seen here with the best measuring gadget ever.

The pizza was scheduled for Wednesday's dinner but I made a quick change Tuesday afternoon.  Since this is dough and not DiGiorno, it required some prep time.  Quick calculations.. with some help, I could just make it.  I rang my assistants, Caitlin and Captain Hook, and they were both up for the challenge.  

I quickly grabbed the essentials - ingredients, gadgets, camera, computer for recipe and Lianne on standby.

recipe

Lianne

Good thing Lianne was there, I had a question about flour that called for another Skype chat.  How I plan on doing other "pinned it, did it" stuff without backup is beyond me.

Caitlin and I started measuring and feeding ingredients to Captain Hook, only to find out I only had 3 cups of flour.  As I was pondering the situation, Caitlin, the mouthy assistant, was yelling at me, "Mommy! We need one more scoop!"  Me, "Caitlin, get your jacket. We're going to the store for flour."  

no flour

Caitlin asks, "What if the store doesn't have any flour?!?"

I say, "We order delivery man pizza."

Caitlin asks, "What if we get home from the store and you forget what we were doing?"

Is she for real?  I know I'm scatter brained sometimes...  wait, what were we talking about? Flour!  The store had flour!  

flour

Crisis averted, but now I was really crunched for time.  We quickly threw the rest of the stuff into the bowl, mixed it, covered it, set it aside.  Quickly being the key word. Something must have gone wrong because the dough didn't rise.  Either I messed up doubling ingredients or my house was too cool for the "hour to rise" time frame.

So, Tuesday's dinner was cheeseburgers for the adults and waffles for the kids.

After dinner, I studied the recipe to avoid any more errors.  Pizza stone?  Parchment paper?  I had neither a pizza stone nor parchment paper.  Even if my dough had cooperated, I clearly wasn't prepared to be making pizza on Tuesday.

Skype conference with Lianne #3.  I didn't necessarily need parchment paper if I wasn't using a hot stone and if I use my beloved AirBake pan, I will need to adjust the oven temperature.

Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon, I picked up my human assistant from preschool, headed home, and made dough #2.  Good thing I splurged on the 3 pack of active dry yeast.

Nice-looking pizza dough.  Caitlin says, "It turned into cookie dough!  Get the chocolate chips!"

Let me take this time to introduce you to Dillon, my food critic.  Toughest critic in the business.

After 3 hours, it's nice and fluffy, just like it should be. I gathered the pineapple, sauce, and cheese.  I pinned the sauce from Lianne's blog too.  So, really, this is a two for one pinned it, did it.

I rolled it out into something that kind of resembled a circle.  First time, remember?  I resisted the urge to throw it over my head, swinging it in a circle on my fist.  Not going to lie - I really wanted to do that.

I baked the naked pizza at 425 for 5 minutes.  Then, after the kids dressed it, I baked it for an additional 12 minutes.  My assistant and critic are unprofessionally impatient so I took it out sooner than I would have liked.  Next time, I'll probably put them outside and bake it a little longer in peace.

This is where I should plug in a picture of the beautifully baked pizza.  But, with all the threats of starvation happening, I forgot to take that picture.  Novice blogger.  I did check in with the critic though.

He liked it!  Amazing.  His professional opinion is, I should be on TV to teach how to make pizza.  But I'm not ready to work at Bruno's (local pizza place) because it took too long to make.

"Took too long" - I don't know if he's counting Tuesday's attempt also or if he was just being ridiculous because he was, how could I forget, starving!

So, there you have it, my first pinned it, did it.  Not much was left.  In the end, I'd say it was a success.

Now you may applaud.

Pinned on Pinned It, Did It.

Melissa