Dissolve the sugar in ⅓ cup of Luke warm water and add the yeast. Stir it once and let it sit for 5 minutes until the yeast activates.
Meanwhile, sift the APF and add the salt.
The yeast mix should like frothy like below when it’s activated. Add this to the flour and mix.
Little by little add water (I used 3 tbsps) and knead the dough for at least 5 minutes. Make sure the dough is not too dry and not too watery/loose.
Grease a bowl with oil and spread some oil on the dough also. Cover it with a cling wrap and let it rise. This time I kept it in my fridge as I planned this for our weekday dinner. I kept it for about 8 hours and removed it as soon as I reached home so that it can come to room temperature. Overall the dough was resting for 9 hours.
Preparing the Topping
While I let the dough to come to room temperature, I made the toppings as it requires some time.
Chop all the mushrooms and onion.
Heat a skillet or pan and add oil.
Once the oil is hot, add the onion and cook until translucent.
Then add the white mushrooms, salt, and pepper. Saute for a minute and then add the other mushrooms. Mix them well and let it cook for 3 minutes over low flame. Mushrooms will ooze out water. Increase the fire and let it cook until 90% of the water is evaporated. As this recipe doesn’t use any sauce, the water content of the sautéed mushroom helps a lot.
Let it cool, and in the meantime, you can prepare the base.
Preparing the Base
Punch down the raised dough and knead again for a couple of minutes. Make it into a ball.
I transferred the dough to the back of a round plate which I dusted it with flour before.
First, press it down into a small disk.
Slowly stretch/push the dough with your fingers working from the center towards the edges, make the round slightly bigger. As I wanted thin crust for this, I used my pizza roller after this stage. You can use a pizza roller to stretch from the beginning.
Let this rest for 10 to minutes.
Meanwhile, grate the required cheese and preheat the oven.
Preheating the Oven
If you are using a pizza stone, preheat the oven to 500 deg F with the pizza stone inside.
If you are using a regular baking tray, pre-heat the oven to 450 deg F. Make sure the aluminum foil or the parchment paper that you are using to on the tray can hold the high temperature.
Arranging and Baking
If using a pizza stone, once the oven is preheated, carefully remove the pizza stone from the oven. Sprinkle some cornmeal or rava. Now transfer the pizza base carefully to the stone.
If you are using a baking tray, transfer the base to the tray.
Spread the grated mozzarella generously and form a nice bed of the cheese. Sprinkle some dried basil on top.
Then add the cooked mushroom as required. The mushroom measure that I used can be used for two pizzas.
The sprinkle parmesan and mozzarella on top.
Do not spread to the edge as the toppings might overflow.
Bake this for about 10 minutes until the crust is browned and cheese is all melted.
Let it cool a bit and slice them and serve it hot.
Notes
As we use parmesan cheese, I reduced the salt amount. But you can adjust according to your preference and same goes for the pepper as well.
I have explained about the baking time and dough rise in yesterday’s post. The same applies to this recipe too.