Top Hawthorne Valley Farm's Organic Pizza Dough with your favorite sauce and cheeses for a fun, tasty meal! This dough has a relatively high hydration, so we've provided guidelines for preparing below.
Tips for perfect pizza at home:
- Thaw Organic Pizza Dough in the fridge overnight. Once thawed, remove from fridge and let come to room temperature on the counter. (When we say room temp, we mean room temp! This will allow the gluten to relax so you can more easily stretch the dough.)
- Preheat oven to 450-500 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove pizza dough from the bag and place on a well-floured countertop. Grab the right side of the dough and stretch it out and over to the center. Perform the same motion with the left side. Pull the top out and over to the center, and finally, pull the bottom out and over to complete your dough ball and forming the "seam." Once all the sides have been neatly tucked in, flip the dough ball so that it's seam-side down on your workspace. Cover with a light sprinkle of flour and a kitchen towel and allow to rest for about 15 minutes.
- Remove the kitchen towel and begin to press the dough into a flat circle with your fingers, starting in the center and making your way to the outer edges. You can also pick up the dough and stretch it out in the air, allowing gravity to pull the weight of the dough downwards. If the dough resists stretching, set it back on the floured workspace and cover for another 10 minutes or so. Repeat this process until the dough has stretched to your desired size.
- When you're ready to top your pizza and bake it, carefully transfer your stretched dough to your heated baking sheet/skillet/pizza stone/etc. Top with your favorite ingredients and bake until the crust is gold brown and cooked in the center (about 12-15 minutes). Optional: put down a layer of polenta or corn meal before transferring your pizza dough to the baking surface. The coarse particles keep your pizza from sticking to the pan and make it easy to slide onto a cutting board.
Ghent, NY
Hawthorne Valley Farm has been dedicated to producing high quality food for more than 35 years. Their biodynamic farming practices reflect their commitment to protecting the health of the earth and all who live on it, and their education and outreach programs strive to raise awareness of the social, ecological, and economic importance of agriculture in their daily lives. Hawthorne Valley Farm, like all farms, is part of the global food system and part of its regional foodshed. Through conscious collaboration, they're working to build a new food paradigm predicated on providing nutritious food to all people in their foodshed, preserving farmland and farmland wildlife habitats, making land accessible for sustainable agriculture, enhancing regional economic vitality, and fostering connections between people and the living land.
HVF aims to establish a true Biodynamic Farm; to connect children and adults with the land and the food that nourishes them; and to provide agricultural products of the highest quality. Through the farm’s products, they hope to open an educational dialogue about the environment, the economy, and ourselves. Adding value to their farm products through their Dairy, Farm Store, Bakery, and Sauerkraut Cellar allows them to grow their farm in a balanced way–with less stress on the land, plants and animals. The income from these "value-added" activities coupled with the greater profit margin from direct marketing permits the farm to maintain a reasonable and "human" scale. Thus they are able to avoid the monoculturally-based, industrial-scale, factory-farming methods which are prevalent in the country today.