I hate having the oven on in the summer.
Our condo is west-facing, so we get all the afternoon sun and heat. I avoid using the oven in the summer at all costs. The tools that help me do this are my Cuisinart bread machine, our toaster oven and our BBQ!
I have never tried making pizza on the BBQ. No pizza on the BBQ, means no homemade pizza at our house all summer long. Not an enticing prospect, since pizza is one of my husband’s favourite foods.
I decided that Sunday would be the day I would try making pizza on the BBQ.
Up until now, I had been using my bread maker to make the dough for my pizza – with varying levels of unsuccess. The crust was edible, but not something I could brag about, or, as I am sure you have noticed, blog about. I decided to follow a recipe for whole wheat pizza crust from Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook and make it by hand.
It turned out fantastic.
I even used 100% whole wheat flour – instead of using part white flour as he suggested (labeling something as whole wheat and then finding out that the recipe still has white flour is one of my pet peeves!). The crust had the full flavour that you would expect from a whole wheat crust, but was tender, chewy, and easy to work with – something that evaded me when I made whole wheat crust in the bread maker.
I have seen recipes for making pizza right on the grill, but I erred on the side of caution and used my special BBQ pizza pan. I formed the uncooked dough on the pan, added my sauce (canned diced tomatoes with basil and oregano), sautéed onions, garlic and bell peppers, veggie pepperoni on EPC’s (photo above) and then a dusting of cheese (mine had fresh arugula sprinkled on after grilling – photo below).
I threw the pizza on the grill at about 500°C and let the heat come down to between 400°C and 450°C. I cooked the pizza for about 10 minutes until the cheese was bubbling and the crust was brown. It was so easy and so delicious and best of all our place stayed cool.
I have posted the recipe for the crust. The toppings are up to you!
100% Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (enough for 2 12-inch pizzas)
1 1/3 cups of warm water
2 teaspoons of dry yeast (I used Bread machine yeast and it worked fine)
3 tablespoons of extra-virgin live oil (don’t scrimp on the oil – it helps keeps the crust supple)
3 cups of all-purpose whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups of salt
- Using a wooden spoon, combine the water, yeast and oil in a large bowl.
- Add the whole wheat flour, and salt and continue to stir until the dough comes together.
- Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 6 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
- Put the dough into a lightly oiled large bowl and cover with a clean damp cloth. Let rise until the dough has increased in size about 1 1/2 times. This takes about 1 hour.
- Divide the dough in half and place each half in a large lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let rise for 20 minutes.
- Flatten each ball of dough and then shape into a circle the size of your pan.
- Cover lightly with toppings (I pre-cooked my onions and pepper before grilling to ensure that the onions were fully cooked) and grill until cheese is bubbling and crust is brown about 10-12 minutes.
- I had my BBQ at 500°C and lowered the heat while cooking to between 400 and 450°C.
Cookbook Cooks 