CROCK PIZZA
We have a restaurant in town that serves Italian dishes and my family really enjoys their crock pizzas. I don’t think crock pizzas are actually “Italian,” but I could be wrong. Anyways I digress, because I am a vegan, the number of places to eat at is very limited. I find that I can make the dishes myself, that have more flavor and imagination than anything I can get in most establishments here. This takes me back to the crock pizzas. They are great if you eat diary and meat. I know I could get the plain with sauce and no cheese, but why?? I don’t see why, I have to be limited to some mundane, pedestrian pizza that just tastes okay. Enough ranting; more pizza.
I love making these pizzas. They are fairly easy, if you don’t mind making the dough for the crust. I use french bread for the crust and modify it by adding whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. I prefer the taste of whole grains, next time I think I will try a gluten free flour, like spelt and see how that turns out. The french bread recipe is listed below.
French Bread
2 1/2 cups water (divided; see directions below)
1 Tbsp of olive oil or vegetable oil
1 Tbsp of salt
2 1/2 tsp yeast
~5 cups whole wheat flour
Directions:
Mix yeast with 1/2 cup of 110°F water. Allow to sit for 3 min and then stir to dissolve. The next step, I use the mixing bowl from my mixer, add the oil, sugar, and salt and cover with 1 of a cup of boiling water. Once salt and sugar is dissolved, add another 1 cup of cold/room temperature water. Now add the yeast to the sugar, oil, salt mix. Add 5 cups of flour to the liquid mixture. I used my mixer with a dough hook to need the dough on medium speed for 5 min. The dough will be smooth and stiff, not too dry, add more flour if the dough seems too sticky.
Place in a lightly oiled bowl (large enough to allow the dough to double in size) and cover with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap. I let the dough rise for about 1 hour in a warm, draft free area. During the winter, I turn the oven on to warm setting and set the dough on top of the stove.
Preheat the oven to 400 °F. Once the dough has doubled, lightly oil 4 soup crocks and place on a heavy cookie sheet. I place the cheese, your favorite, grated or sliced on the bottom, vegan sausage, crumbles, what ever you prefer on you pizza. Then add the tomato sauce mix; I usually saute the onions, garlic and peppers, then add diced tomatoes or tomato sauce, with a little oregano, basil, sea salt and white pepper. Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Shape into circles or oblongs depending on the shape of your crocks, and place over the top of the crock. The dough can be divided into as much as 8 pieces. This makes a thinner crust and will cook faster than the thicker crust. I cooked this for 20-25 min at 400 °F for the thicker crust.
Remove from the oven when the crust looks brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Allow to sit for 5 min. Take a plate, then with oven mitts, invert the soup crock so that the crust is facing down, and use a knife to loosen the edges and scoop out any remaining toppings and cheese. Repeat for the remaining 3 soup crocks. Serve with a nice green salad. ENJOY!
As you can see the dough is randomly shaped.
Enjoy cooking and the food you create!
