Inspired by my latest Foodie Book Club read, The United States of Arugula, I wanted very badly to make something inspired by one or more of the chefs chronicled in the book. We channeled Alice Waters in our Homegrown Salad with Fried Tofu and we’ve been craving thin crust pizza, so who better to use as inspiration than Wolfgang Puck! Our spin on Margherita Pizza is full of tomatoes, herbs, artichoke hearts, and ricotta on a thin and crispy whole-wheat crust.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
1 cup (6 ounces) of water
1 packet of active-dry yeast (if using instant yeast, you don’t need to dissolve it during the first step)
3 cups (10 ounces) whole wheat or unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tablespoons brown sugar
Toppings:
1 cup artichoke hearts
3 cups tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup oregano, destemmed
1/4 cup basil, destemmed
1/4 cup parsley, destemmed
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
3/4-1 cup mozzarella cheese
Olive Oil
Parmesan cheese
Directions:
1. Between 30 minutes-1 hour before baking, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. If you plant to use a baking stone, place it in the middle of the oven. Add lukewarm water to yeast and whisk and stir yeast thoroughly into water. Allow the yeast a few minutes to dissolve. Measure flour into a mixing bowl, add salt and use your hand or whisk to combine. I use the “kneading” attachment for my mixer. Pour water-yeast over flour mixture and use your hands or a wooden spoon to combine. Turn dough onto counter with extra flour and knead until flour is incorporated. Roll onto parchment or pizza stone in whatever method you know best.
2. Brush dough with a little olive oil and add all ingredients except cheese. Bake for 5 minutes and rotate pizza 180-degrees. Bake for an additional 3 minutes and then sprinkle cheese over top. Leave in oven an additional 3 minutes or until the edges of your pizza are golden and crispy.
3. Remove pizza from oven and cool on wire rack for five minutes.
Light, fragrant, and full of fresh herbs/veggies, you really can’t help but fall in love with this recipe. It’s perfect for those hot summer nights when you don’t feel like a more bread-heavy, cheesy pizza, and we think it would also taste amazing grilled. Very rarely if ever have we opted to go sauceless on our pizzas, and it will be hard to go back now. We hope you’ll give it a try and enjoy it as much and often as we plan to this summer. Check out more pictures of this meal on our Flickr!
Your pizza looks great! We use a pizza stone and feel it is the best thing we’ve purchased in a long time. My partner does the dough for our pies. She has had a ton of luck freezing the dough before using it. Once defrosted, the dough is more pliable and cooks more evenly.
The best pizza pie in this town is made at home, IMHO.
I totally agree, we almost never order pizza, and I the dough does have a better, even quality if you freeze before using, we’re just not that great at the timing with our work schedules, so this recipe is the best we’ve found so far. The more I eat, the more I realize I like less cheese/sauce and more veggies/herbs.
Freeze first! Noted… GREG
Um, this looks amazing. Fantastic. Must make it this week!