Previously I posted a recipe for a traditional pizza with a whole-grain crust. Today’s recipe is a deep-dish pizza in a cast-iron fry pan, although you could use a standard pie pan if you want. I was inspired to create this pizza after we got some great local shiitake mushrooms and some wonderful tomatoes for slicing along with really good raw milk cheddar. The dough produces a consistence much more like bread than the previous recipe that I posted, thanks to more gluten and a little oil.
Begin by making the dough, so it can rise while you prep everything else.
The Dough
- 1 tablespoon yeast (less, like a teaspoon, if you have all day for the dough to rise–if you want pizza in an hour or two, use the full amount)
- ½ cup warm water
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
- 2 tablespoons wheat gluten
- pinch of sugar
- pinch of salt and/or Cavender’s Greek Seasoning
- optional: dried oregano, thyme, and rosemary
- 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon olive oil
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, at about bath-water temperature. If it feels like good bath-water to you, the yeast will like the temperature too. Let the yeast hang out in their bath for a few minutes and then add the remaining ingredients. You can make this dough in no time if you use a food processor, but your hands will work fine too. In a food processor, you know you’re done when the dough forms into a ball. Do not over-process! Now put the dough in a well-oiled bowl more than twice as big as the dough ball, cover lightly, and set aside until the dough is almost doubled.
Toppings
- Canadian bacon (we used nitrite-free turkey bacon), cut into quarters
- thickly sliced shiitake mushrooms, 1-2 cups
- thinly sliced tomatoes, at least 2 tomatoes–you could also use one can of good tomatoes, drained, whole so you can slice them yourself, otherwise the chunkier the better
- mozzarella and sharp cheddar cheese, about 2-3 ounces, shredded
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Clean and slice the shiitake mushrooms. In a 10-inch cast iron skillet on the stove top, lightly brown the mushrooms in a little olive oil to release some of the mushrooms’ liquid. Now remove the mushrooms, add a little more oil, and lay the tomato slices out evenly across the skillet. Bake the tomatoes for 15-20 minutes to get them to release their liquid. Turn off the oven if you want. Now remove the skillet from the oven, set aside the tomatoes (drink any juice they leave!), re-oil the skillet, and let it cool for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, flatten out the dough ball on a lightly floured surface, until the dough is about ten or eleven inches around. Let the dough rest and rise a bit more while the cast iron skillet cools so that you can comfortably touch it. Now gently fold the dough in half and transfer it to the skillet and spread it to within a half inch or so from the edge. Preheat the oven to 450 degree F now while the dough rises in the skillet. Once the dough is puffy again, put the skillet in the oven and let the dough bake by itself for about 15 minutes on the upper oven rack.
Take out the skillet and add the toppings, starting with the meat, then a tiny bit of cheese, then the mushrooms, then most of the cheese, then the tomatoes, then the rest of the cheese and Italian herbs (oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil). Increase the oven temperature to 500 degrees F and bake the pizza for about 15 minutes on the top rack again, until the top is browned. Check for overly juicy tomatoes periodically. Should the tomatoes still be producing juice, you can lift the edge of the pizza to let the tomato juice drain underneath. It will start to bake off as soon as the juice hits the hot skillet, and it’ll give your crust a nice flavor too. Let the pizza cool for a few minutes to help the cheese set up, and then cut the pizzainto wedges using a bread knife or pizza wheel–or both, as we did, using a wheel for the middle and the bread knife for the edges. Eat and enjoy!
Of course, you can choose any toppings that you want, but we think heartier toppings work best with such a thick crust. Some of the Chicago pizzerias where deep dish originated use a whole disk of cooked sausage as the base of toppings. You can even get seafood in a garlicky white sauce with few or no tomatoes.
Do you make deep-dish pizza at home? What are your favorite toppings?
Copyright 2010 Ozarkhomesteader. Short excerpts with full URL and attribution to Ozarkhomesteader are welcome. Please ask for permission to use photographs.
PIZZZA!!!!!!!!
i just LLLLLLLLLoooooooVVVVVEEE (love) it
Its so yummy and mouth watering!
i like it
keep it up
Thank you!
we make pizza once a week at our house, but two out of the three of us a thin and crispy crust lovers. I don’t mind thin either, but have always been a deep dish girl.
I have a pizza stone, and have never made one in the cast iron skillet. Might do it this week.
Polly, are you using your good goat’s milk cheese on your pizza? I bet that would be so yummy!
My goodness, this looks good. I do not eat pizza normally (dietary reasons) but I am looking forward to making this healthy one. I think I will use spelt flour. Have you used a wheat free flour before? Linda
Thanks, Linda. I’ve used spelt before and I’ve used wheat free flour, but generally I only do that when I am making food for someone else, since no one in my family is sensitive to wheat and gluten.
Hi,
Can you tell me why you add 2 tbsp of wheat gluten to the pizza dough? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. Is it because it is an all whole-wheat crust?
Thanks
Absolutely, it’s because I’m using all whole-grain. Bread dough, including pizza dough, gets its flexibility from gluten. It’s just not accessible enough in whole-wheat flour. If you aren’t sensitive to gluten (and most of us aren’t!), it just adds protein, since that’s what wheat gluten is.
By the way, I’ve got a recipe with less gluten for a thinner crust: https://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/crisper-crust-whole-grain-pizza-with-sausage-mushrooms-and-black-olives/
Thanks for the explanation. It makes sense. And thank you for the second recipe. They both look delicious. Could we make the second pizza (thinner crust) in the cast iron skillet too? I love that idea!
Yes, cast iron works great for baking pizza. Make sure you start with it warm or you’ll need to increase your bake time. The dough in the thinner-crust recipe will make enough for two pizzas if you use a standard big skillet. I have two 9 1/2-inch cast iron plates (for lack of a better word!) that we use for pizzas when we want to have 4 times the fun with toppings. I’ll make each 9 1/2-inch with half one topping, half another. The 9 1/2-inch plates also make a lot of sense for summer, when they easily fit in a toaster oven.