BLT Pizza

Continuing my homage to the unusual pizzas of the past at California Pizza Kitchen, and I am recreating my favorite discontinued pizzas at home.

I started by prepping a whole wheat dough. It was frozen, so I let it defrost and proof on my counter for several hours before touching it. Then I cleaned the surface I would be working on, made sure it was dry, and poured down some cornmeal. When stretching the dough out, you'll want to use that or semolina, which is more expensive. Coat both sides and ensure that your ball is pretty round. Then stretch it out a bit, flipping it a few times to coat and sticky parts with corneal. Stretch the dough with your fingers and slide the dough in a clockwise, circular motion, keeping your palm off the middle. Keep stretching until you have a fairly good size dough. Then gently pick up the dough and shake off excess cornmeal. Lay down in a pizza pan or on a pizza stone. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

 

Start with spreading about 2 cups of mozzarella cheese onto the crust, paying more attention to the edges, because everything will pool to the center.

Then I added 3 broken up strips of lightly cooked bacon. This pizza is great warm or cold but you should make the decision now how you plan to eat it. If you want to eat it cold, dice up some cherry tomatoes and spread those on as well and then top with a sprinkling of Italian seasoning over the pizza and bake. If you want to eat it warm, right away, I would bake it first and then add the tomatoes. Pizza should bake for 8 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, top evenly with some shredded lettuce. Then, using a pastry bag with a small tip or a Ziploc bag with a small slit cut into it, pipe out some ribbons of mayo on top.

Cut into six or eight slices, twisting your wrist at the end of each pizza slice with the cutter to ensure that the slices separate.