Grilled Pizza Dough

A couple years ago for my mom’s birthday I bought her a pizza stone for the grill. My mom is the queen of useless kitchen gadgets (avocado slicer! olive spoon! pickle fork!) and homemade pizza, so I thought she would get some good use out of a grilling stone. I can count on my hands how many times she has used it. Actually, I don’t need any hands. When you add zero to zero you still have zero.

When I was home a few weeks ago we decided we would finally make some grilled pizzas, and my mom brought the stone up from the basement. Then she pulled out her grilled pizza cookbook from her cookbook arsenal and discovered that their recipe for pizza dough on the grill did not require a stone. Good news for all of you out there with a desire to grill pizzas but no desire to spend money on a stone! Bad news for the pizza stone, which remains unused.

We ended up doubling the recipe for dough because we thought it would be fun to have a pizza eating contest while my dad was out of town. Or we just had a lot of ideas for toppings and did not want to limit our fun. I’ll give you the doubled recipe, but you can cut it in half if you want to make just two pizzas.

Start out by dissolving two packets of yeast in 1-1/2 cups of warm water. While the yeast is activating, combine the following ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer:

3 cups flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp cornmeal

Mix the dry ingredients on low speed. Pour the yeast into the bowl with the mixed dry ingredients. Add 4 tbsp olive oil. With the dough hook attachment beat at medium speed until it all comes together. Form the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Roll the dough around to coat it with oil, cover it, and let it rise in a warm place until it almost doubles in size. The book we used hinted that it would take about 2 hours. I don’t know if we had super power yeast or a really warm house, but it only took the dough about 45 minutes to practically triple in size.

While the dough was rising, we had a very, very adorable distraction. Our friends brought over their teeny little baby with her teeny little feet and we got to hold her and stare at her and check out her mini fingernails. How cute are her little toes?

Once the dough rises, stick it in the fridge for an hour or more to make it easier to roll out. You can refrigerate it overnight or for a couple of days if you change your mind about making pizza. After the dough chills for a bit, punch it. I should have let the teeny baby foot step in it. She’s a clean little baby. I know where her feet have been.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and with your hands, flatten it out into a disc that’s about 1″ thick.

Slice it into quarters if you’re making the double recipe or halves if you’re just making the regular recipe.

Take one of the pieces and roll it out on a floured surface until it’s about 1/8 inch thick. Rolling out pizza dough – I finally figured out what Ludacris was singing about. Roll out. Roll out.

Transfer the dough to a pizza peel or cookie sheet that has been generously sprinkled with cornmeal.

For the cooking part, you can used either a grill, a grill pan, a griddle, or any similar hot surface. I think we heated the grill to about 400 degrees. If you’re using a griddle, turn the heat up to high. Throw the dough on, and after a few minutes you should be able to handle it with tongs. Don’t mess with it too much at the outset because it is still doughy and will stick to the grill. Just be patient and you should be able to move it around in a minute or two.

Whichever surface you use, cook the dough until it bubbles and is lightly browned on the bottom. Remove it from the grill/pan/griddle and flip it over so the uncooked side is down. You’ll add the toppings to the cooked side and the uncooked side will have it’s turn after the toppings are on.

Topping ideas coming soon!

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