The Food Matters Project: Fennel Pollen No-Work Pizza Dough

Here we are at week eleven of the Food Matters Project. Niki, from Salt & Pepper, selected Bittman's "No Work Mostly Whole Wheat Pizza Dough" for this week's culinary challenge. This is the easiest pizza dough I have ever made! But it does require lots of lead time. The recipe suggests letting the dough ferment for six to twelve hours and that the longer you let it ferment, the more complex the flavor; I let it go for ten hours. And it was delicious.


2 C whole wheat flour
1 C white flour
1/2 t active dry yeast
1 t fennel pollen
1 t pink Himalaya salt
freshly ground flower pepper
2 T olive oil
1-1/2 C warm water

Mix everything together in a large bowl. The texture will be a wet, sticky dough. Cover and let ferment for as long as you can - between six and twelve hours.

At the end of that, use the dough as you would use any pizza dough. Click here for what our week's hostess did with her dough. And to see how the other bloggers used this, click here and look in the comments section.

As for me, I decided to use the dough to make a timpano, a Italian dish that - as its name indicates - is shaped like a drum.

I pressed the dough to line a buttered baking stoneware bowl. Then I layered in cooked penne pasta tossed lightly with tomato sauce, meatballs - also flavored with fennel pollen - simmered in tomato sauce, hardboiled eggs, and mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.

I covered the dish with another disk of dough, pressing the edges to seal.

Baked this in a 350 degree oven for 60 minutes.

Run a knife around the edge and let cool, in the baking dish, for 15 minutes before unmolding.

Cut into slices and serve with a green salad. This was delicious and you could really taste the fennel pollen.