Pizza Bianca

I started going through the Cook's Illustrated site a month or two ago and found that you can sign up to be a Recipe Tester with them. Sweet. Sadly, I can't find the link now. As much as I love them, I can't give them props on the site design.

Anyway, while this is listed as a "Pizza," it's really pretty close to a Focaccia. Baking is really another of my weak spots, so I had general trepidations. As I didn't have time on a weeknight for letting the dough rise for 2.5 hours and then baking, I put the dough in the fridge like they said until Saturday.

Needless to say, it didn't triple in size as it warmed and rose. I'd say it rose to 150% of the original size in the bowl. This concerned me that I was going to have a brick, so I bought a backup loaf of Tuscan bread, just in case. But as I was spreading it out on the sheet, it sure felt like there was plenty of air in the dough. Sure enough, it was just perfect.

The recipe was pretty straightforward in the end. I made three changes to the recipe:

• I don't own a pizza stone, so I skipped that.
• I only had bleached all-purpose flour - no unbleached.
• At the 20 minute mark where you add the rosemary, I also tossed on parmesan cheese.

Neither of the first two affected the results, it seemed, and the third was just tasty. This is a total winner of a recipe (which I will post later - promise). I think I'm going to have to try other breads now.