Entertaining + Fun: St. Louis-Style Pizza

St. Louis-style pizza has a super thin crust topped with pizza sauce, provel cheese and Italian seasoning. It’s one of the quickest homemade pizzas you can make being the crust doesn’t have yeast in it and it takes all of 12 minutes to bake.

If you have a pizza craving at six you can be eating a fresh, hot square of pizza by six-thirty. Craving abated. Faster than take-out.

2 cups unbleached self-rising flour*
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 tablespoons water
*Substitute 2 cups all-purpose flour + 1 teaspoon baking powder + ½ teaspoon salt and increase the water to ½ cup

⅔ cup pizza sauce
1 cup shredded sharp white cheddar cheese
½ cup shredded smoked provolone or mozzarella cheese
½ cup shredded Swiss cheese
dried Italian or pizza seasoning

Preheat oven to 425°F and lightly grease two 12" round pizza pans, or a couple of large baking sheets.

Mix the flour, oil, and water together - the mixture will be shaggy. Use your hands to gather it together and form into a ball. Divide it in two and form each half into a disk the rounder the better.
Cover with saran wrap and allow to rest 10 minutes to make for easier rolling - skip this step if you're in a hurry.
Grease a piece of parchment or wax paper about 12" square and set a circle of dough in the middle. Cover with another lightly greased piece. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough very thin - ⅛ inch or less.
Place the dough on the prepared pans. Top each pizza with ⅓ cup of the sauce.
Mix the cheeses together and sprinkle ½ over top of each then season with Italian herbs or pizza seasoning.
Bake the pizzas for 9 to 12 minutes or until the cheese is melted with a few golden brown spots and the edges/bottom of the crust are golden brown.
Remove the pizzas from the oven and let set 5 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board, cut into squares and serve immediately.

If you can’t find Provel cheese, a processed white cheese I’ve never even heard of before, you can combine sharp white cheddar with smoked provolone (or mozzarella, if like me, you’re a traditionalist) and Swiss cheese.

The crust is made of self-rising flour, olive oil, and water. It comes together fast and is easy to roll out.

If you bake your pizza on a pizza stone it will be crispier than if you bake it on a baking sheet. The baking sheet gives the crust a little bit of chewiness which, surprisingly, I really liked.