I was about to lable this post something stupid like “Healthy Pizza” and then thought better of it. Properly made pizza with a lean, slow fermented dough, formed into a thin crust, sparingly topped with pizza sauce, cheese and little else is a thing of beauty. And yes, it is also healthy, good for you (provided you don’t eat a family sized pie!) and a far cry from the greasy cardboard crusted disgraces that big chains home-deliver as pizza. I still wish I could come up with a slightly wittier title than Whole Wheat Pizza. Oh well, it is what it is I guess.
I’ve been wanting to give this pizza dough recipe a shot ever since I got Peter Reinhart’s “Whole Grain Breads” book since every other recipe I’ve tried has been wonderful. He uses his original method that combines a refrigerated biga starter (whole wheat flour, yeast and water) and a “soaker” (whole wheat flour, water and salt). No white flour is used at all and through the magic of enzymes, yeasts and long slow fermentation we end up with a perfect and flavorful dough.
Topped and before it went into the very hot oven
I like mine with an egg in the center. Served it with a very good Lebanese Pinot Noir.
Toppings included cooked tomato sauce, mozzarella, crumbled sausage and homemade ricotta cheese. It was delicious but certainly not “just like” a pizza made with white flour dough. It had a more robust flavor and was light, crispy and chewy. The real test was the kids. I try to give them foods high in fiber whenever possible and this pizza was a big hit with them. A win-win situation really.
