Monday, February 20, 2012

Adding Pizazz to Pizza


Pizza eaters fall into two categories:  those who eat the crust and those who don't. 

I am a crust eater, but when I served my own homemade pizza (which I do often), something was lacking.  Brian never (never!) complains about what we eat for dinner, but he did admit that the taste was a bit bland and he never specially requested homemade pizza for dinner. 

Still, we all love pizza so I worked to come up with a solution.  At first I tried experimenting with the toppings, thinking that maybe adding more diverse flavors would be the key, but no, something still wasn't right.  I tried adding more cheese, less cheese, various varieties of cheese.  I tried different sauces and different amounts of sauce, and while we ate many good pizzas, none of them were great. 

A few months ago, I focused in on the crust.  I started by adding ingredients to the dough, but they were barely detectable.  One night, I was inspired.  Instead of putting things into the crust, I brushed on some butter and sprinkled things onto the crust. 

That night at dinner, there were oohs and aahs around the table as everyone bit into their slices.  Flavor predominated from that first cheesy bite all the way to the finger-licking crust! 

   Easy Pizazz-y Pizza Crust

Start with a basic crust recipe.  Roll out your dough and assemble your pizza.  Before baking, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.  In a separate bowl, mix
¼ cup Parmesan cheese with 1 tablespoon of garlic salt.  Brush melted butter around edges of the unbaked crust and sprinkle generously with the garlic mixture.  Bake pizza as directed and enjoy! 

5 comments:

  1. We LOVE pizza at our house but have yet to find a homemade recipe that we all love. I'll have to give this a try!

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  2. Do you bake you homemade pizza on a pizza stone? If so, do you preheat the pizza stone in the oven before putting the pizza on it? We tend to go for frozen pizza, but I'd like to give homemade a try.

    On a side note, I love reading your blog. I've been reading for probably 8-10 months by now. I can't remember if I've commented before or not, though. If not, "Hi! I'm Sarah. Nice to "meet" you."

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  3. i'm lazy and buy the store bought crust. but i love spreading garlic grapeseed oil and some garlic seasoning on it. :)

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  4. I don't have a pizza stone so I use a plain old basic baking sheet to make a rectangular pizza and a metal pizza pan for a round pizza. If I put them both in at the same time, I put one on the top rack and one on the bottom rack, being sure to switch them midway through baking.

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  5. I am definitely trying this the next time I make pizza!

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