Having overcome my fear of yeast, a whole new world of possibilities has opened up! Today I made pizza dough, which we then used to make calzones. Making the dough was very easy – very few ingredients and really not much guess work (in other words, it was very clear that the dough had risen). I used a popular recipe from allrecipes.com and based on some of the reviews, I stuck half of it in the freezer to use another time. The other half we split in two so Shane and I could each stuff the calzones with our favorites. I went with mushrooms and onions while Shane chose sausage. We also used sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, cheddar and garlic. I didn’t measure the quantities we used – we just kind of eyeballed it. These were really good!! In fact, I think our local pizzeria might be losing our calzone business.
As usual, the pictures don’t do the calzones justice…
By Tracey
Pizza Dough (my modifications in green)
from Allrecipes.com
Ingredients:
- 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 F)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
Directions:
In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit (covered) for 10 minutes.
Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour. (I used the paddle attachment on the KA mixer for this part and then switched to the dough hook before adding the rest of the flour)
Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. (I used the dough hook to knead the dough. I had to add approximately another 1 1/2 cups of flour (4 cups total) to get the dough where it needed to be) Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. (I let it rise for an hour and a half) Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out.
Baking temperature and time are dependent on a number of factors (including whether you’re making pizza or calzones), but we baked the calzones on a greased cookie sheet at 375 F for about 30 minutes.
