Whole Wheat Pizza Dough, Yippee!

At long last, whole wheat homemade pizza has become a mainstay in our home, thanks to a simple recipe for whole wheat pizza dough that I have been quickly whipping up in my food processor! And I couldn't be happier, because I have to admit, if there was one thing that I felt guilty about feeding my family (namely on Thursday nights when I was busy cooking for shabbat) it was storebought frozen pizza, which I knew just wasn't good for them at all, but which they were happy to eat.

But now, that they've tasted homemade pizza that is so much more filling on account of the whole wheat crust and real tomato sauce, well, hopefully there's no going back. Even my husband said the pizza was "Sof" which means "end" in Hebrew meaning at the end, or really top, of the rating scale. He just wished I had made a bit more!

Ingredients:

1 cup warm water,
1 tablespoon date syrup
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
2¾ cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon sea salt

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit with rack in the upper position. (I've been using a toaster oven for this, set on the highest temp. and it works just fine.)

Throw all the ingrediants in the food processor and mix using the dough blade, or use your regular mixer, or even make it by hand. This is such a simple recipe I'm going to get my kids to start making it! Let the dough sit for about 20 minutes if you have the time, if not don't worry about it.

Note: If you want to do it the "correct" way, put the water, yeast, sugar and oil in small bowl and mix. Wait for yeast to start bubbling. Meanwhile, place the rest of the ingredients in the food processor/mixer, and then add the liquid. If your dough needs a bit of kneading to get a nice consistency, by all means, knead it a bit.

Divide the dough into two pieces, and roll out into the shape that will fit into the pan you'll be using. I cut a piece of baking parchment that was the size of the pan, and then rolled out the dough on top of that. Then I simply lifted the piece of parchment to place the dough in the pan. I made two pizzas using one pan so this is especially helpful when it comes to setting aside one pizza while the other is baking.

As far as topping, I'm gonna leave that one up to you, but I would certainly experiment with roasted veggies, and mushrooms and onions, and the "healthiest" cheese you can find. At the moment I'm sort of stuck pleasing the kids with basic pizza, but I'm going to work up to something just a bit higher on the culinary ladder over time. Certainly some kind of white cheese, like feta, would be a better choice than the standard yellow cheese we're currently using!

So, I just spread store bought pizza sauce, or preferably matbucha (the Moroccan tomato spread/salad that we eat almost every shabbat) on the dough, cover it with little slices of cheese, and then bake for about 15 minutes. Do watch your pizza as it goes quickly! Enjoy.