Home made Pizza
My dough recipe started out life as King
Arthur Flour's basic Pizza crust recipe. I've changed it more than a bit, but I recommend reading the original as they have instructions on how to make it a fridge dough or even frozen "pre-made" pizza crusts.
2 teaspoons active dry yeast or instant yeast
7/8 to 1 1/8 cups lukewarm water (use more in dry weather less in humid)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons
KA Easy Roll Dough Improver
a generous sprinkle of onion powder (NOT onion SALT)
twice as much garlic powder as onion powder (again, NOT garlic salt)
a good dash of red-pepper flakes
a good dash of oregano
a couple twists of fresh ground black pepper
1) If you're using active dry yeast, dissolve it, with a pinch of sugar, in 2 tablespoons of the lukewarm water. Let the yeast and water sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, until the mixture has bubbled and expanded. If you're using instant yeast, you can skip this step. I mix the spices and what not in here usually.
2) Combine the dissolved yeast (or the instant yeast) with the remainder of the ingredients. Mix and knead everything together—by hand, mixer or bread machine set on the dough cycle—till you've made a soft, smooth dough. If you're kneading in a stand mixer, it should take 4 to 5 minutes at second speed, and the dough should barely clean the sides of the bowl, perhaps sticking a bit at the bottom. Don't over-knead the dough; it should hold together, but can still look fairly rough on the surface.
3) Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and allow it to rise till it's very puffy. This will take about an hour using instant yeast, or 90 minutes using active dry. If it takes longer, that's OK; just give it some extra time.
4) Decide how much pizza you want to make at one time. This recipe will make up to one 3/4" thick 13"x18" crust. For the two of us we usually divide into half and save the other half for pizza later, which results in enough pizza at one time for us to stuff ourselves. It'd probly do 4 "personal sized" pizzas no problem. Follow the above link to the original recipe to figure out what to do with the extra dough.
5) If you're making a rectangular pizza, shape the dough into a rough oval. For a round pizza, shape it into a rough circle. In either case, don't pat it flat; just stretch it briefly into shape. Allow the dough to rest, covered with an overturned bowl or lightly greased plastic wrap, for 15 minutes.
6) Use vegetable oil pan spray to lightly grease the pan(s) of your choice. Drizzle olive oil into the bottom of the pan(s). The pan spray keeps the pizza from sticking; the olive oil gives the crust great flavor and crunch. I usually do this on a piece of parchment paper and cook it on a pre-heated stone in the oven. Place the dough in the prepared pan(s). Press it over the bottom of the pan, stretching it towards the edges. You'll probably get about two-thirds of the way there before the dough starts shrinking back; walk away for 15 minutes. Cover the dough while you're away, so it doesn't dry out.
7) When you come back, you should be able to pat the dough closer to the corners of the pan. Repeat the rest and dough-stretch one more time, if necessary; your goal is to get the dough to fill the pan as fully as possible.
8) Allow the dough to rise, covered, till it's noticeably puffy, about 90 minutes (if it hasn't been refrigerated). Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 450°F. I have cooked the dough with as little as a half hour rise here, it makes a nice thin crispy crust if thats what you want.
9) Bake the pizza on the lower oven rack till it looks and feels set on top, and is just beginning to brown around the edge of the crust, but is still pale on top. This will take about 5-8 minutes for thinner crust pizza; about 10 to 12 minutes for medium thickness; and 12 to 14 minutes for thick-crust pizza. If you're baking two pizzas, reverse them in the oven (top to bottom, bottom to top) midway through the baking period.
10) Remove it from the oven, and arrange your toppings of choice on top (see below). Return to the oven, and bake on the upper oven rack for an additional 8 to 15 minutes, until the crust is nicely browned, both top and bottom, and the cheese is melted. Check it midway through, and move it to the bottom rack if the top is browning too much, or the bottom not enough.
11) Remove from oven, cut and eat!
Pizza sauce.....I haven't yet found a pizza sauce recipe I like, though I'll admit I've not looked hard. Our local Wegmans sells a "home made" pizza sauce (its a store brand and supposedly mixed in store, though I have my doubts) that we actually like quite a bit, so I've not had much incentive.
We use a 50/50 mixture of shredded chedder (Wegmans sells big 5lb bags of shredded sharp chedder, I repackage into small ziplocks and freeze the extra) and chopped fresh mozzerella (I have frozen shredded moz in the freezer, but the fresh is TOTALLY worth the work), along with a healthy grating of asiago and romano cheeses.
Pepperoni is easy of course, but while you're pre-heating the oven you can cook up bacon in it to go on the pizza, or cook up some sausage of your choice.....
The end result takes more work than ordering takeout, but its spoiled us to the point where we don't WANT take-out any more. I regularly store the dough in the fridge for pizza later, and one of these days I'll make up a couple batches to pre-bake the crusts for easy pizza in a hurry later.
