Pizza Margherita

In Thursday's Breads class, we had our midterm exam since it is only an eight-week course. Chef rewarded us with learning how to make homemade pizza dough and using the fresh mozzarella we made a few weeks ago to top our pizzas. An excellent day, obviously.

People assume that I am a skilled pizza maker because of my college summers spent working at Cesari's Pizza at Knoebels. The truth is, though, that I never actually made pizza at Cesari's. I would assist with making sauce, making dough, and preparing the toppings, but it was never my job to actually form the pizza - this was left up to the guys. So, this was really one of the first times I made a traditional pizza and it was excellent.



Traditional Pizza Margherita has fresh tomatoes, fresh mozz, and fresh basil so we made a few of those. I also added olives on one of my pizzas. Some pizzas we made from 1 lb doughs and others we made from 8oz doughs. The 8oz doughs make a really perfectly sized personal pizza.

So, four weeks into school, and I made my own mozz and a fresh pizza. Life is seriously good. In the words of my former track coach, "It was a great day to be alive."

What was also excellent about today was that Chef allowed Mom and Dad to drop by class and check things out. I was really glad my parents could meet two of my chefs today as well as actually get to see what it is that I do every day and where the baking magic happens. It was really fun to share this experience with them, and they got to bring home a pizza for lunch, so I think they were happy about that as well!