Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza

Since I've already had experience with thin-crust pizza, I decided to go to the other end of the pizza spectrum and try a Chicago-style deep dish recipe I found. It is actually made for a 14-inch pan, but I made it work with 3 8-inch cake pans, and it turned out great; be prepared for a lot of pizza though!

To make the dough, combine 3.5C All-purpose flour, 1/2C cornmeal, 2.25t yeast, 1t sugar, 1t salt

1.5C water and 1/2C vegetable oil, then kneed for 7 minutes or until well combined. Then, put it large bowl (it expands to 2-3 times initial size), cover with saran wrap with a couple holes and refrigerate overnight.

To make the pizza, start by taking the dough out of the fridge an hour before you want to work with it so it warms up enough to be malleable. Once it's sat for an hour, move your oven rack to the lowest setting and preheat your oven to 450. Then, coat the bottom of your pan(s) with non-virgin olive oil and spread the dough (or divided dough) to fill the bottom of your pan(s). Next, you need to work it up the edge to form the crust. After some trial and error, I found the best way was to use 8 fingers to draw up the dough while spinning the pan around. The suction created by the oil in the crack of the pan helped, and eventually it held its form, but be patient and just keep working it. Then, spread mozzarella or provolone cheese on the bottom and then layer whatever toppings you want (I did pepperoni). Then, add tomatoes. I used high-quality diced tomatoes (Hunts fire-roasted diced tomatoes), and it worked great, and 2 cans was perfect for my 3 8-inch pans. Then, sprinkle basil and oregano and top with Parmesan. Bake for 20 minutes or until the crust looks deliciously browned, let sit for a few minute and enjoy. I got the pizza out of the pan with a couple spatulas and cut on a cutting board, beware of knives in Teflon pans. End result was a nice lightly crunchy cornbread-y crust that held form and blended with the fillings in a most delightful way. 3 8-inch pans should serve about 6 for dinner. Based on http://www.pizzamaking.com/dkm_chicago.php