Recipes

Cast Iron Pizza

This is my recipe for cast iron pizza. This is a staple food for me. I am lucky to eat lots of good pizza. Based on this video

Ingredients for Four (4) pizza doughs - 12" cast iron pan

4½ cup flour (all purpose, bread, bleached, unbleached...)
2 cups water
1 tsp active yeast
4 tsp sugar
Olive oil

Toppings

Tomato Sauce or Crushed Tomatos (even spaghetti sauce will work in a pinch)

BBQ Sauce (only did this once, actually turned out pretty good)

AND anything you want

Mozzarella (look for low moisture!) or a shredded Italian mix, most any cheese works though
Pepperoni
Jalepeno Slices
Spinach (I get frozen spinach and add it after cooking it of course -- fresh is great too)
Olives
Onion, bell pepper, etc...

Mix yeast and sugar into 2 cups warm water, you can let this bloom for 10 minutes, but it's not necessary. I throw it into a bread machine these days with some olive oil (maybe a tablespoon? I just throw a few splashes in) and put the flour on top (I won't put olive oil on top of the flour anymore, it didn't mix in!)

You can also knead manually, make sure it feels nice and stretchy, I'd say it takes a good 10 minutes at least. Cover and let rise for about half an hour.

Once the dough is risen, I cut it into quarters and save 3 of them in bags in the refrigerator. The yeast is pretty active, so you might want to "punch" them down after a few hours so they don't burst the bags or open them drying the dough out. I also add a little salt to try and tone down the yeast before mixing everything together.

I put italian seasoning, garlic power, dried onion flakes along with olive oil and corn meal in the pan to season the pizza and prevent it from sticking to the pan.

For sauce I've found using some generic little cans of tomato sauce works fine. I just put a bag and rubber band over it once I use the 3 spoons of sauce per pizza. Don't add too much sauce. Add toppings, this is an art and science, be careful to not add too much moisture.

After topping turn on the stove for 7 minutes on about medium heat, you should hear sizzling and smell a bit of crusty cooked dough. Using a pot holder transfer the pizza to a broiler (that has been pre-heating) for about 4 or 5 minutes. It should look like the pictures above.

Enjoy