TWD :: BWJ – Pizza with Onion Confit

Well, look at that! It’s 2013. When did that happen? I mean, I know when it happened, but somehow I’m surprised by how quickly last year came and went. Are any of your resolutions still standing? Do you even make resolutions? This year I have, if only to avoid the it’s-December-and-what-have-I-done-with-yet-another-year-of-my-life anxiety. One of which is to be a bit less, uh, “particular” (i.e. perfectionist) about things. That just leads me to procrastinate because what if it’s not perfect? I’m fairly certain (fairly) the world would not stop turning. In that vein, I have a whole handful of Tuesdays with Dorie posts to consolidate and mark as complete on my list (of course I have a list!).

Of course, my inner perfectionist is saying “Look! I’m getting the first post of the year up on time! 2013 is going to be awesome! (But please ignore my bad text/picture formatting, I’ll fix that at some point.)” I don’t know whether to slap her or give her a high five…

I am an onion lover, so I had zero qualms about attempting this recipe. If you’re not an onion lover, well… you might want to move on, because nothing will get you past the onion-ness of this recipe. If you like onions and wine, though, you are in luck. These babies get a good, long, warm soak in wine. About an hour. You’ll see I was a rebel and used a mix of yellow and red onions. Really, I’m not a rebel, this was what I had on hand. So really I’m just thrifty. Or lazy. You pick. (I also had no Creme de Cassis, but, who has Creme de Cassis on hand?)

Hello, lover…

The dough was pretty straight-forward, if gooey(at first). You let the sponge rise for about an hour and a half, add some oil, salt and more flour, knead it with your lovely mixer (or lovely hands, if you prefer) and let it rise again.

Gooey, soon to be delicious, pizza dough.

I chose to stretch my dough by hand, versus rolling it out. I seem to have more success getting a round(ish) shape that way. It did stretch fairly thin, and I was a bit concerned that it wouldn’t hold up while baking but thanks, in part, to a pizza stone it crisped up really well. No flabby, floppy pizza slices here! If you’re into cracker-thin crusts, it’s absolutely achievable with this dough. (This dough also makes really good calzones, but I have no pictures of those. Lazy, I tell you!)

Yes, my onions were very purple. Barney purple. Harold and the Purple Crayon purple. Purple Pizza People Eater purple. I almost expected them to taste like grape candy, but they didn’t. Next time I will definitely put some goat cheese or other savory-something to balance the sweetness of the onions.

You can find this week’s recipe over at Paul’s blog, The Boy Can Bake, or in Baking with Julia on page 159 157. Also, make sure to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site where you can find all of the other bakers here.