PAESAN PIZZA CRUST!!!!!

The happiness of that day in Orem, Utah at Paesan Pizza still haunts me and I am determined to repeat it! Today I am recipe testing the Goddesses' Crust and it's heavenly of course.

This is the thought progression: If the restaurant can prepare these crusts--have them available to be grilled (for sandwiches) or slathered in olive oil and baked in a pizza oven, then why can't I?

So I mixed up the Goddesses' crust recipe and oiled two pieces of plastic wrap. I dropped about a half-cup of the dough into the center of one piece of greased plastic, then placed the other piece, oil side down) on top. I used an 8" cake pan as a pizza press and then peeled the top piece of plastic off. I turned the pressed dough into the oiled (olive) cake pan, then peeled back the second piece of plastic and set it to rest (raise) on the top of the warm stove for about five minutes.

I may have overdone it with the olive oil in the cake pan, but my judgement with olive oil has always been slightly skewed. The restaurant used about a quarter cup, but that was at the reheat/pizza oven stage not the prebake.

The dough did not raise discernibly atop the stove, but when I flipped it out onto the 590 degree pizza stone that had been heating in my oven for about a half hour. (Can I just tell you that the fire alarm does not like kitchen ovens heated to 590 degrees,) It (and the excess olive oil) sizzled wildly and within three minutes had raised into shockingly high pizza sized bubbles- I hurriedly flipped the dough and the other side was toasty within minutes. It was not done in the inside, nor did I expect it to be as the crusts at Paesan looked only prebaked.

My next thought: A little oil goes a long way, and probably was not necessary at all at this stage-neither was the 590 degree oven. Reducing the setting to 450 also was too much of a burn, but it makes a very nice pizza in the final phase. (I jumped ahead and cooked the first sample 10 minutes longer at 450 covered with the toppings.)

It was nice and crispy on the bottom, although next time I would bake it closer to the top of the oven, (but who in their right mind tries to move a pizza stone heated to superhot and is unsuccessful, and then suitably chastened?)

That is why I am now nursing a burn on my wrist, but a deliciously, delectable, savory pizza in my mouth.

P.S. The flattened piece of dough that I grilled on my pancake griddle cooked nicely and is awaiting sandwich fixings and the arrival of an appetite of someone who has not been bread safari sampling all day long.