44 Hour Pizza Dough (30 Minutes From Fridge To Plate)

I love homemade pizza (see exhibits A, B, C, and D), but it can be hard to find time to let the dough rise between assembly and baking. So, a recent New York Times article about allowing pizza dough to rest for 24 to 48 hours before baking appealed to me in terms of efficiency, rather than improved taste or texture.

I mixed up my dough on a Thursday evening (using my standard recipe from Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian), and then placed it in a covered bowl in the refrigerator. On Saturday afternoon, I came home, peeked into the fridge, and saw that the dough had risen nicely. The pizza was in the oven about 20 minutes later. Ten minutes after that, I was marveling at how much better a pizza crust that's rested for a couple of days really is. And not just because I was pleased to be eating a freshly-baked homemade pizza about a half-hour after I walked in the door (although that was nice, too).

The flavor and texture of the crust were lighter, even though it was the same recipe that I normally use. (The NYT used the word "nuanced" to describe the change in flavor, which sounds silly when applied to pizza crust but is, I think, accurate). The only downside is that I ate much more pizza than I normally would, because I kept wanting to "confirm" the difference.