Yesterday I made a from-scratch deep dish pizza using the recipe in The Great Chicago Pizza Cookbook. The crust turned out beautifully, or so I thought until I tried to cut it. It wasn't burnt, but was hard as a rock! We had to saw through it and it was just too much chewy to enjoy the rest of the ingredients.
Does anyone have any suggestions? The recipe calls for 1/2 c of yellow cornmeal and I wasn't sure if that was the issue or if I should forego par baking or what? There are photos below. Any and all advice welcome!!! 
Pre oven:
Again, it looked fine, but was hard as concrete. I only parbaked for four minutes....any ideas what went wrong?
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Without a recipe it is hard to really say anything other than did you add the yeast? follow the recipe, skip any steps, let the dough rise? The smart folks will be more helpful.
I didn't skip any steps and yes, I added the yeast. Here's the recipe:
DOUGH
1 ½ packages active dry yeast
1 1/2 cup warm water (105° F.-1150 F.)
1 tablespoon sugar
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup warm water
I would use a different recipe, this one look closer to corn bread than a pizza dough. I would expect to see 3 cups flour to maybe a 1/4 cup cornmeal. The water to flour/corn meal also looks to be too high.
Well, that was my fault. It's actually 3 1/2 cups of flour, I typoed the recipe here but did use 3 1/2 c when I made the pizza.
1/4 cup of oil for the liquids and one cup of AP and Corn meal combined is a seriosly wet dough - like buttermilk . Something is very wrong with thsi recipe on the flour side?
No, something is wrong with the typist. The recipe called for, and I used, 3 1/2 c flour! Sorry!
That has to be the thinnest topped DD Pizza I've ever seen!
I heavily layer on the toppings and the crust has to keep up with all the moisture from about one inch of piled on goodies. That might make the difference and soften the crust. Never could eat more than one piece of it. :)
I have never parbaked mine. I just drizzle or brush on some olive oil so the ingredients don't make it too soogy. It would definitely help to bring the ingredients to the edge so the edge doesn't dehydrate when it bakes. I also try to make my edge a little thinner initially because it will puff out as it rises. That inside corner can get especially thick so start out thinner there,also.
Only 1/2 c flour and an equal amount of cornmeal? Those rations don't seem right. For 1 1/2 c water, I would think there was 1 1/2 c flour and 1/2 c cornmeal. I ,personally would reduce the cornmeal-makes it crunchy and could make it hard, as suggested. 1 tbsp. at most and the rest for a pan liner.
Otherwise-looks delicious!
Good idea on the not parbaking. Also, it was 3 1/2 c flour; I typoed when copying the recipe. But that is the amount I used when making the dough.
So, I've decided to re-attempt this at the request at our truly lovely neighbors, who have really become good friends.
In the three plus years since this first attempt, I've done quite a bit of baking and have had both spectacular successes and truly astounding failures. I wonder if the problem isn't that I baked this in the dish **on the pizza stone**? I definitely didn't understand my stone then as well as I do now.
Thoughts?