Home-made pizza

I am big fan of pizza, and it is a favorite meal on the weekends. I am also a firm believer that everyone should make their own crust – it is easy, tastes great, and doesn’t take much effort. The only constraint is that you need about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs to make the dough – most of this time is just for the dough to rise; in reality, you probably spend about 10 minutes actually making it. Here’s how.

Dough starter:

• 1 tablespoon Fleischmann’s active dry yeast (don’t use quick rising)
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 cup warm water

Put the yeast and sugar in a big bowl. Pour in a cup of decently warm water. Cover the bowl with a towel and let sit for 15 minutes.

Rest of dough ingredients:

• flour (as much as needed)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• more spices/seasoning (if desired)

Once the yeast has risen, you should see a nice thick foamy layer on top of the water. Add the salt, honey, olive oil, and any additional seasoning you might want. Then start adding flour and mix with a wooden spoon. Keep adding flour and mixing until the mixture is dry enough for you to start kneading with your hands. At this point stop mixing with the spoon and use your hands. Keep adding flour and working the dough until the dough stops being sticky. Now knead the dough for a few minutes – dont’ add any more flour, just keep working it. This helps the dough as it breaks down the gluten (I think). You should end up with a nice ball of dough.

Leave the ball in the bowl, put a towel over the bowl, and let it sit for an hour or hour and a half. The towel keeps the dough moist and prevents it from drying out. While the dough is rising get your toppings ready. Use whatever you like. Tonight I am using a tomato sauce, olives, red pepper, broccoli, spinach, sun-dried tomatos, salami, and feta and cheddar cheeses. Basically use whatever you like and find tasty. After the dough has risen, you are ready to roll it out.

The dough will probably require a little more flour. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough ball and put some on the kitchen counter where you are going to roll the dough out. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to the size you need, then put it on a pizza stone (highly recommended) or cookie sheet. At this point I toss the crust in the preheated oven (400F) for about 5-7 minutes. This helps the crust to rise and bake a little so that it doesn’t get soggy from all the ingredients. I tend to layer on a lot of ingredients and this ensures that the middle of the pizza is properly cooked. Just don’t over bake the naked crust. All you want to do is have it rise a little and have the surface start to harden – no more than 7 minutes. 

Spread the sauce, layer the ingredients, cover with cheese and toss in the oven for 25 minutes.

With practice, you will get to know what spices to add to the dough to make it taste the way you want, and how much of the dough you want to use for the pizza crust to vary its thickness. Enjoy!