B is for braided, breakfast, because

Considering I often whine about how long proper pizza dough takes to develop (or at least to cold-ferment), this braided pizza proves that I still have time to kill. And yet I was not entirely satisfied with how this one had turned out. It took too long to bake, even for “rolled” pizza, and the crust too uniformly browned, looking as if it came from a neighborhood bakery. Too nice, in fact. After waiting a full day for the dough to proof, I expected something a little more rustic, like blisters on the crust — you know, as in (ahem) Neapolitan pizza.

Yes — I had this monster for breakfast. Not all of it, mind you (what do you take me for?). The filling was a mixture of precooked bacon, chorizo, onion, finger chili (could’ve added more), scrambled egg, and two kinds of cheese: cheddar and mozzarella. Quite a lot to pack into a single loaf, it had looked like, but that was before the dough bloated up in the oven, so if you intend to make this dish, keep that in mind. It was good filling, by the way, if a bit heavy with all that bread.

I have probably featured pizza more than any other dish on this site, but as you can see, I’m still learning. And while I appreciate (and also learn from) store-bought pizza, I still prefer to make mine from scratch. It’s just much more gratifying. Pizza is so ubiquitous these days than one can perhaps be forgiven for thinking it’s as easy as 1-2-3. It’s not. There are countless sites and fora out there dedicated to the subject of making the perfect/ultimate homemade pizza, and even the type of flour to use can become a matter of serious (even heated) discussion.

So when I say that I’m not too happy with the crust on this one, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. A little knowledge can indeed be a dangerous thing, and the more I learn about pizza, the less I am willing to overlook the complete lack of blisters on one, say (but only because I was aiming for the effect in this case; what looks like a blister in the photo above is actually burnt cheese). Now I have to wait another 24 hours to try again. We’ll see; I had made a large batch and still have enough dough left over for a couple more rounds. My friends should be ecstatic. Blistered or no, pizza is pizza. Not to mention free.