Pizza Dough for Grilling, Freezing (original source: Cooking Light 199x)
July 18, 2022 6:06 AM   Subscribe

In the 1990s (1996? 1997? 1998?) Cooking Light had a summer, pizza grilling article with a recipe for dough. The dough recipe may have had baking powder along with yeast. It was a small, maybe single serving pizza that was rolled out with a rolling pin and could be grilled (cook on one side, flip, toppings, finish). The pizza doughs could be rolled out and frozen in layers with was paper between. It was dare-I-say foolproof. Does anyone have this recipe?

Bonus - the accompanying tomato sauce and cheese sauce (ricotta and mozzarella?) recipes were also really good.

(I knew I should have kept the 10 years of Cooking Light magazines, those were the best even though they were 1990-lowfat.)
posted by RoadScholar to Food & Drink (3 answers total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: This is from a Cooking Light grilling pamphlet - so I am guessing it is close but not exactly what you're looking for.


Quick-and-Easy Pizza Crust
2 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 package quick-rise yeast
3/4 cup warm water (120 to 130 degrees)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons cornmeal

Combine first four ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture.
Combine water and oil; add to flour mixture. Stir until mixture forms a ball.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic (about
10 minutes).

Place the dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to
coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 45 minutes or until
doubled in bulk. Punch dough down; divide in half. Cover and let dough rest 10 minutes.

Working with one portion at a time (cover remaining dough to keep from drying), roll
each portion into a 10-inch circle on a lightly floured surface. Place dough on two
baking sheets, each sprinkled with 1 tablespoon cornmeal.

On another page it says:
To make ahead, chill the rolled, uncooked crusts for up to 4 hours,
or freeze the dough for up to 2 weeks. Make sure that the dough
is brought back to room temperature before rolling it out and grilling it
posted by soelo at 7:28 AM on July 18, 2022 [6 favorites]


Best answer: Cooking Light's June 1997 issue has an article called 'Smoke Gets in Your Pies.'

Just to set the stage a little bit, this issue features full-page ads for, among other things, Crystal Light Tropical Passions Watermelon-Strawberry, Diet Snapple, Gardenburger (now available at the grocery store), newly-introduced color-changing Ziploc bags, Got Milk? with Martha Stewart, and the Cooking Light CD-Rom Cookbook.

It includes soelo's crust recipe (well, same ingredients, slightly different verbiage), as well as a food processor variation:

Place the first 4 ingredients in a food processor, and pulse 2 times or until well-blended. With processor on, slowly add water and oil through food chute; process until dough forms a ball. Process 1 additional minute. Turn out onto a lightly floured counter, knead 9 to 10 times. Proceed with step 2 ('Turn dough out') in above recipe.

And, it being 1997, one for bread machines:

Follow manufacturer's instructions for placing all ingredients except cooking spray and cornmeal into bread pan. Select dough cycle; start bread machine. Remove dough from machine (do not bake). Proceed with step 2 in above recipe.

There's a recipe for a Pizza Margherita:

2 teaspoons olive oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
2 pizza crusts
cooking spray
4 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced (about 1/2 lb)
1 cup (4 oz) shredded part-skim mozzarrella

1. Combine first three ingredients in a small bowl; set aside.
2. Combine basil and oregano in a small bowl; set aside.
3. Prepare grill. Place 1 crust on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 3 minutes or until puffy and golden. Turn crust, grill-mark side up; brush with half of oil mixture. Top with half of plum tomatoes, mozzarella, and herb mixture. Cook 4 to 5 minutes or until cheese melts and crust is lightly browned. Repeat with remaining crust and toppings.

The same issue also has recipes for several other pizzas. In all cases, the cooking instructions are very similar:

Grilled American Pizza (4 oz. turkey sausage, 1/2 cup marinara, 1/2 cup mushrooms, 1/2 cup onion, 4 oz. mozz, 2 oz. parmesan),

Grilled Pizza Blanca (1/2 cup parm, 1 6 oz. jar artichoke hearts, 1/2 lb. crabmeat)

Grilled Mediterranean Chicken Pizza (2 tsp olive oil, 1/4 tsp black pepper, 2 tbsp drained sun-dried tomato halves, 1/4 cup kalamata olives, 2 tsp dried tarragon, 2 tsp drained capers, 1/2 cup dry white wine, 12 oz roasted skinned, boned chicken breast, chopped)

Grilled Barbecued-Chicken Pizza (2/3 cup bbq sauce, 6 oz chopped chicken breast, 2 oz shredded smoked Gouda, 2 oz. shredded mozz, 1/4 cup sliced green onions, 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro)

Grilled Vegetable Pizza with Feta and Spinach (3 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 garlic clove, 1 eggplant, cut into 1/4" slices, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp olive oil, 2 cups chopped plum tomato, 4 oz. crumbled feta with basil and tomato, 2 tbsp fresh or 1 tsp dried oregano, 2 cups thinly sliced spinach leaves, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar)

Goat Cheese and Grilled Pepper Pizza (2 tsp olive oil, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper, 1 cup yellow bell pepper rings, 1 cup green bell pepper rings, 1 cup red bell pepper rings, 1 cup sliced red onion separated into rings, 2 oz. crumbled herbed goat cheese at room temperature)

Personally, I'd take the Pizza Blanca recipe and add the goat cheese. Happy pizza grilling!

(I'm led to believe that these recipes also appear in the Cooking Light Annual Recipes 1998 cookbook, but I don't have a copy at hand to verify that.)
posted by box at 8:44 AM on July 18, 2022 [10 favorites]


Response by poster: Many thanks to you, soelo and box, and your archiving and retrieving skills!

My memory had the dough as different from a typical pizza dough recipe but that's about as average as can be. This was probably the first pizza dough I ever made. I would make 3-5 batches at a time and freeze them for grilled summer pizza, no indoor oven needed.
posted by RoadScholar at 10:18 AM on July 18, 2022 [3 favorites]


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