I haven't made pizza from scratch in years – as in at least a couple decades. We made 2 pizzas tonight. The first was my son's, which used a standard tomatoe sauce, and let's say it was educational – during the first bake the thing puffed up almost like a mound of bread, so we flipped it upside down to put the sauce and toppings on it. When I did mine, I first poked a fork all over the raw dough, and didn't let it stay in the oven quite as long for the first bake. It still puffed, but not nearly as much. I used a pizza stone for the first time tonight, after having done research on various ways to use it. It was definitely a good purchase, as the crust was nice and crispy all the way through. The learning curve on my pizza was primarily regarding the sauce; I had thought it was too thick after first making it, so thinned it with more cream. Mistake. But this was also proof the crust was excellent: it was crispy at first, in spite of the too-thin sauce, until even it got too soaked.
Crust: Flour, yeast, salt, olive oil, ice water
Sauce: Cream, flour, butter, sea salt, cayenne powder, chipotle powder, garlic powder, cumin, romano cheese
Toppings: Shrimp, pancetta, asparagus, green onion, tomatoe, jalapeno, romano cheese
This was mine, after the first bake when the toppings were put on, but before the second bake:
The finished pizza:
I will definitely make this again, but of course, won't thin the sauce. Also, I bought some crab and artichoke hearts to put on it, but somehow forgot to use them, so will definitely include next time. Another thing is that I had wanted to use Fontina cheese, but couldn't locate any in the time I was willing to spend on it, so will make some effort to find some for next time.
Haha - probably shouldn't post this, but you'll get the idea of just how thin the sauce got:
Yep - gotta have a sense of humor about one's self!