Homemade Deep Dish Pizza

I have nothing to disclose.

I want to sneak in one more post tonight and this one is not polish related, but I want to share it here anyway. Last weekend I made homemade deep dish pizza for the first time and I gotta say, it was delicious.

 Sauce Recipe
6 ounces tomato paste
1 can crushed tomatoes (I think it's like 24 ounces or so, my recipe calls for 20 ounces but I just use the entire can)
1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon pepper
salt to taste
1 Tablespoon chopped onion and green pepper if desired.

That's the basic recipe. We season it to taste, so I actually use at least double the amount of oregano and probably twice the amount of garlic, onion and green pepper. I mixed all of this in a pot and cooked it on medium low for about 2 hours. Set aside and let cool, then stored it in the fridge to use the next day. The longer this sauce sits, the better it gets. I normally make this and use it the same day on my pizza, but it makes enough for several pizzas so I store the leftovers in the freezer with no problems.

Pizza crust recipe
1 1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar

3 - 4 cups flour
garlic powder, to taste
onion powder, to taste

1 tablespoon yeast

I let the yeast rise in half a cup of water, mixed with maybe a teaspoon of white sugar. Then I mix the remaining water and remaining ingredients in a bowl. After ten minutes, I add the yeast to the dough. I knead the dough for about 8 minutes.

For the deep dish pizza I was making two pizzas so I had to make two batches of dough and I ended up with about enough dough left over to make 1 more normal pizza. So I just put the leftover dough in a freezer bag and stored it in the freezer for some other time.  So if you're making just one deep dish pizza, this about the right amount of dough for one pizza depending on the size of your pizza, thickness, etc.

Normally I would let the dough rise for about 30 minutes, punch it down and roll it out, then let it rise for another half an hour, and then apply the toppings. I wanted a thinner crust, so instead I let it rise for 30 minutes, punched it, then started rolling it out. The dough wasn't behaving so it did take longer than expected to roll out. So anyway, here's what I did:

Make the sauce
Make the dough
Cut one batch of dough in half. Cut one half in half again. Take one of the quarter pieces of dough and add it to the larger half piece.
Roll out the large piece of dough until about 16 or 18 inches. This will be large enough for a 10 inch spring form pan.
Carefully set the dough inside the pan, making sure not to leave any air pockets between the pan and the dough. The edges of the dough should be hanging over the top of the pan.
Fill the inside with a layer of sauce.
Fill with toppings.
Take the remaining hunk of dough, roll it out to about 12 inches or so and carefully place it on top.
Pinch the edges of the two layers of dough together to form a crust and trim away any really long ends.
Top with a layer of sauce and a layer of cheese.

I used a mixture of 6 cheese shredded, a mixture of provolone and mozzarella on the inside and on the outside I topped it with shredded parmesan.

I repeated this process for a 9 inch pizza, but of course making the crusts smaller. Hopefully this process makes some sense!

I cooked these in my oven at 425 for 25 minutes, then let them cool for about 15 minutes before removing the side of the pans and cutting. The 9 inch was done just fine in that amount of time.. I really hate dough that isn't cooked all the way through so believe me, this was most definitely cooked well. The 10 inch I didn't realize until I was putting away leftovers that it wasn't quite cooked long enough so I think for the 10 inch I would cook it another 5 minutes next time.

 As I mentioned, I used spring form pans to make these which worked perfectly. I bought a set of three size pans at WalMart for under $10. 

This pizza does require a little bit more work than normal pizza.. in part because I made so much of it (we were expecting company.) I felt it was well worth it though! One piece is enough to fill you up, so we were eating on this for several days! I've read some recipes where others use a different type of dough for their deep dish pizza, but using my regular pizza dough it turned out really well. I want to say the crust ended up more like a bread. I'll definitely be making this again some day. Really good, and really yummy for a special treat and different style of pizza :)