I'll have some beer in that pizza please

We are a household that likes pizza.

We have ordered pizza from every spot in our town in the almost 5 years we’ve lived here. We have a favourite place that we order from, but not long ago I decided I wanted to try my hand at making a homemade pizza from the crust up. By some miracle, he-of-the-good-ideas was on board. Since we recently rediscovered our love for our breadmaker to prepare the dough for rolls, I decided to try out the pizza dough setting. Some time ago I heard something about using beer in bread dough and I was intrigued.

First of all, is beer selection. He-of-the-good-ideas drinks Coors Light (pfft... can you even really call that beer?) and there was no way I was using that for pizza crust. For my first attempt, I chose Alexander Keith’s India Pale Ale. This is my one of my favourite choices for local beer, I like it with chips, nachos and hamburgers but as I learned, it’s not all that fabulous for pizza crust. It wasn’t bad but I knew there were better options out there, so for the pizza dough I wanted to make tonight, off to the LC I went...

I wandered through the international beer section and read all labels on the shelves and just when I thought I had picked something half decent, someone who worked there asked me if I needed his help. I happily accepted, and ended up coming home with a French beer called  Boris Beer - The Alsatian Flask with a better description go here. I am really happy with the flavour of the crust provided by this beer! If you aren’t sure what to choose on the shelves of your LC, just look for an employee, they’ll likely be more than happy to give you a hand.

First things first, dust off that bread maker you have hiding in a cupboard somewhere and identify the pizza dough setting.

In the ORDER GIVEN (this is key) put the following ingredients in the bucket of the bread machine:

1 cup of flat beer (so just pour off the cup you’ll need for the recipe to let it get flat, and drink the rest)
2 tablespoons of butter ( I used soft margarine because it was there, but some pre-softened real butter would probably be nice)
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
2 ½ flour (I might try a combination of white/whole wheat flour for some future pizza)
2 ¼ teaspoons of instant yeast

Put bucket back in bread machine. Choose the pizza dough setting. Press Start.

Let cycle run through (mine is 50 minutes. With about 20 minutes left, put the pizza stone (if you’re using one) in the cold oven, and preheat to 400.

Slice/shred/prepare your toppings...

Once the dough cycle is done, remove bucket from the bread machine and roll or press (whichever you find easier, I did both) to cover a prepared pizza pan or ceramic pizza stone. Make sure you put your pizza stone on a hot mat or something to protect your counter top while you put the pizza together.

I also like to brush my stone with olive oil before I roll out the dough, but that’s just personal preference. When the dough was all rolled/pressed onto the stone, I formed a nice thick crust around the perimeter and then brushed the whole thing with more olive oil. Then it’s time to dress the pizza...

Sauce (one small can did 2 pizzas)

  

Pizza pepperoni from the deli at my grocery store

Sliced green pepper

Sliced tomato

Bacon (2 slices of low sodium, chopped and pan fried till about ¾ cooked)

Mozzarella cheese

More cheese (can you tell which side is mine? Hint, I heart cheese)

Place in oven and cook for about 24 minutes... just keep an eye on it. This time works for my oven but yours might be different! When done, let it sit out of the oven for about 5 minutes. Slice and enjoy!

So so so so good... and since there are only 2 of us, I always have leftovers for the next day that is best reheated in the toaster oven!

Sometime down the road, I look forward to making myself a chicken, dried cranberry and feta cheese pizza. Maybe broccoli. Doesn’t that sound yummy? Mmmm pizza!

What are your favourite/ideal pizza toppings?