Deep Dish Pizza

I love pizza. There, I said it. I could eat pizza every day. I'm always looking for a new dough recipe, a new style of pizza. My latest adventure led me to deep dish pizza. With a deep dish pizza stone from World Market, I created a very delicious pizza treat.

This dough recipe called for 1 cup of mashed potatoes. Sounds weird, right? Well it made for a chewy crust that was absolutely delicious. Here's the recipe:

1 medium potato - peeled, boiled and mashed
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 3/4 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil

Proof the yeast in the warm water and sugar for 10 minutes. Combine the flour and salt (I use my food processor with dough blade). Add yeast mixture and pulse. Add potato and olive oil, combine till a dough forms. Add more flour if necessary to form a workable dough. Turn out on floured surface and knead 5 minutes. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl, cover with towel and let rise in warm place till doubled in size. (In the winter, I place a bowl of boiling water on the lowest rack of the oven and put the bowl of covered dough on the rack above it. Don't turn on the oven, just let the steam from the water do all the work.) Punch down and turn out on floured surface. Divide in two.

To make a 10" deep dish pizza: Preheat pizza stone at 425 F. Roll out one half of dough to slightly larger than 10 inches. Remove stone from oven, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with corn meal. Carefully place dough in stone and press up sides. Prick crust with fork to prevent air pockets. Bake 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven, add sauce, cheese and toppings. Bake 10-15 minutes or under cheese starts to brown and bubble.

What's great about this dough is that it can be made the night before so you can be eating deep dish pizza in 30 minutes and the dough can even be frozen for a future use.