pizza dough - who to believe?

I have made a bunch of pizzas at home and, predictably, some have been better than others. The problem is that most home ovens can only reach 500-550F (on a good day) and you need temperatures in excess of 800F to make a traditional Neapolitan pie (is there really any other?).

I've tried recipes from Alton Brown, Rose Levy Berenbaum, Cook's Illustrated, and several suggestions from the internet. This website has a recipe for pizza dough which takes two days to make. The author writes in extreme detail about every step of the process, up to how he rigged his oven to be able to cook pizzas on the self-cleaning cycle. He insists that good dough needs this kind of time to develop flavor and texture and I tend to agree with him. This leaves me an unfortunate conundrum, however.

I don't want to have to plan two days out to have a slice of homemade pizza. And I certainly don't want to disable the safety locks on my oven so that I can crank it to the extremes necessary for homemade Neapolitan pizza. But I do want that special combination of flavors and textures that you get in a good slice of pizza.

My inspiration for a solution came from making homemade matzo for a friend. Why not -- matzo, pizza, roti, pita -- they're all flatbreads anyway. I altered the aforementioned Rose Levy Berenbaum's recipe for matzo and baked it, topped with a light brushing of tomato sauce and thinly sliced mozzarella cheese. It doesn't produce Neapolitan pizza -- nowhere even close. It does, however, taste really good and can be done in a home oven without any problems.

"pizza" dough
2 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour (13.7 oz - King Arthur brand is my favorite)
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (1.25 oz)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
1 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
(optional -- up to 1 TB dried herbs or spices such as cracked black pepper, rosemary, or fennel)

Mix all ingredients together until all the flour is just moistened. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes. Knead by hand on a well floured surface for 1-2 minutes until the dough is smooth. Place in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for an hour at room temperature.

At this point, the dough can be turned into pizza or placed in the refrigerator for up to three days. When you are ready to make pizza, place a pizza stone in your oven and preheat it to as hot as it gets (usually 500F) for an hour. Cut the dough into 8 pieces and roll two out very thinly. I like to use my pasta roller and take it to setting #4, but you can do it by hand with a rolling pin -- I have and it's turned out fine. The pasta roller gives you long sheets, but you can make circles by hand. Cover the remaining dough balls until you need them again.

Hopefully, you'll have already made:
-------------------------------------------
tomato sauce (adapted from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking)
1 28 oz can chopped tomatoes (I love Pomi brand -- it's only 26 oz, but that's fine.)
5 TB butter (yes, butter -- I was amazed at how good this made the sauce taste)
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
1 clove garlic, pressed or very finely minced

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer. Turn heat to low and allow to simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Remove onion and do with it what you want (You might want to toss it, but I put it on a piece of Italian bread and inhaled it). If you like your sauce smooth, puree it in a blender or hit it with a stick blender until it's the consistency you like.

Serve most of it with pasta and lots of parmigiano cheese. Reserve about 1 cup for pizzas and chill.
-------------------------------------------
On a well-floured pizza peel, place your thin pieces of dough and very lightly brush with sauce (use a pastry brush if you have one). It should be about a tablespoon per pizza, if not even less.

Place a few pieces of thinly sliced (maybe 1/8 inch) fresh mozzarella (it slices easier if it's cold) onto the sauce and drizzle on extra virgin olive oil. All the while, you should be checking that your dough isn't sticking to the peel. If it is, you're working too slowly! Toss more flour under the dough so that it will slide off easily. Bake on the preheated stone for 4-6 minutes -- you should see the cheese melting and the dough make some bubbles that start to brown.

As soon as it comes out of the oven, top with whole basil leaves and eat. You could have rolled out more dough while your pizzas were baking -- just don't top them until just before you put them in the oven, or you'll have a tough time sliding them off the peel.

Enjoy this non-traditional take on pizza with lots of friends and a bottle of wine per person!