Sweetness & Spice

A little sweetness and spice makes things very, very nice. I’ve never thought about combining honey, red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper before. I especially never considered this combination for a pizza sauce. I will admit, making pizza was quite the challenge in the beginning. An oven is still an elusive convenience for my kitchen; meaning, I do all of my cooking and baking on a three burner stove.

It took some getting used to, however, I’ve learned some tricks along the way and have gotten pretty good at it. Even the cookies are coming out more golden; minus the burnt bottoms.

First, I will share the pizza dough recipe that I use. The original recipe makes 3 large crusts. I’ve cut it down to make 1 crust, however, I actually get two 10″ pizzas.

Pizza Dough:

• 7/8 C warm water
• 1/2 tbsp yeast
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp olive oil
• 2 1/8 C flour

Mix the water, yeast, salt, sugar and olive oil. Mix in the flour, all at once. Use your hands for this part. No kneading is necessary, just make sure the flour gets mixed in well. Cover your bowl with a light towel and let the dough rise at room temperature for approximately two hours.

Next, you will want to get the sauce ready. Here is where the “sweet and spice” comes in! Be sure to get this right! I recall the first time I made this sauce I left out a key ingredient, the honey! I looked around the table as I watched the guys’ eyes get big and they all reached for their drink. It then dawned on me what I did. I haven’t made the mistake again! The recipe I use is Angie Gorkoff’s Exquisite Pizza Sauce Recipe. I leave out the anchovy paste and I also reduce the cayenne pepper and the red pepper flakes to a pinch. Would you believe I actually have a set of measuring spoons that have the measurements Dash, Drop, Smidgen, Pinch and Tad??

You can get them here if you, too, need to know what is exactly a pinch!

A key element of the sauce is the tomato paste. Obviously, if you’ve made some from your tomato harvest, definitely use it. I haven’t got there yet. I like to use Bionaturae Organic Tomato Paste. It comes in a glass jar as opposed to a can; just a bit of piece of mind, I suppose. Tomatoes contain acid and require cans to be lined to prevent the tomato and the can reacting. The sauce is best if it can set up for at least 30 minutes. If you have any sauce left over, just freeze it.

Now it’s time to assemble! Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Take your dough and stretch it into a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Spread your sauce, add toppings and top with shredded mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese (optional). Bake on middle rack for 10 – 18 minutes (until cheese is melted). I like to let the pizza set for 5 minutes before I slice it.

If you are curious about my process, what I do is I heat my 10″ cast iron skillet on the burner. I like to coat my pan with olive oil. I only use 1/2 of the dough. Once I have the dough spread in my skillet, I poke the dough with a fork, just to let the heat escape and avoid burning.

Now, I don’t add my toppings just yet. In order to avoid burning the crust, I need to turn it. I let it “bake” on very low heat for about 7 minutes or so, just until the bottom starts to turn a little golden brown. Then, I use a pancake turner to flip the crust and then add my toppings! First, a layer of the sauce:

Then, a generous spread of pepperoni! Followed by black olives…

And finally, a generous amount of mozzarella cheese!

I cover the skillet and let this “bake” for about 10 minutes. The reason I put a cover on is to help the cheese melt. I find if I don’t do this, the crust is done but the cheese is not melted.

I let the pizza set for 5 minutes or so before slicing.

Serve with your favorite red wine :)and spice makes things very, very nice. I’ve never thought about combining honey, red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper before. I especially never considered this combination for a pizza sauce. I will admit, making pizza was quite the challenge in the beginning. An oven is still an elusive convenience for my kitchen; meaning, I do all of my cooking and baking on a three burner stove. and cayenne pepper before. I especially never considered this combination for a pizza sauce. I will admit, making pizza was quite the challenge in the beginning. An oven is still an elusive convenience for my kitchen; meaning, I do all of my cooking and baking on a three burner stove.