Great Pizza Dough Recipe

I will admit this up front. I love pizza. I think pizza and possibly tacos are the best things in this world. This is probably due to the fact that you can make either of them any way you want them, depending on your taste buds, and your mood on any given day. My entire family loves pizza as well, however my kids all have different ideas on what should be on the pizza. I will also admit that I am guilty of buying store bought, frozen pizzas, you know the kind, the four for ten dollar types. I’m guilty just like the rest of us. Guilty only due to the fact that I have a pretty busy schedule during the week, as well as do my kids. However, I have been fed up lately. Fed up only due to the fact that it is so easy to make dough, and the results are so much better, as well as I don’t have to listen to my kids argue that pepperoni is on the pizza and they do not like pepperoni!

For my last two batches of dough, I have involved my 3 year old and 7 year old. They love being able to measure, and participate in this wonderful experience, and I really think they love the smell of the yeast rising!

This recipe makes two thicker crust pizzas, stromboli’s, as well as my favorite, five thin crust pizzas, which how we roll to make an individual pizza for each of the kids.

Ingredients:

• 1 package active yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/2 tbsp Sugar
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, plus more to drizzle over the dough before rising
• 3 cups all purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
• pizza stone
• pizza ingredients
• Fine corn meal for dusting

To your mixing bowl, add your water, yeast, sugar, and honey. Let this become frothy for about 10 minutes. Take in the smell. It’s wonderful. Once your yeast has activated, add in the salt, olive oil, and flour. Mix this until it forms into a dough ball. You don’t want it sticky, and you don’t want it dry. Take the dough out, and knead the dough for a couple of minutes, before shaping it into a ball and transferring to another large bowl. Drizzle olive oil over the dough to lightly coat. Cover with a large enough towel, and set in a warm place to let it rise. The rising process will take a couple of hours, but I like to let mine rise throughout the day as we most often make the pizzas for dinner.

About 3 hours into the rising process, take the towel off and make a fist, and punch it right in the center. This is called punching down the dough. Cover and let this rise another hour or so. Punch it down again before rolling out the dough.

Your next process is to determine what type of pizza you are going to make. Thick or thin crust. We like the thin crust, however if you are interested in other pizzas, you can check out the rest of my site.

We are going to focus on the thin crust, which makes five pizzas with a cracker like crust.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees, placing your pizza stone in the oven during the preheat.

Take about a baseball size piece of the dough and add it to a floured work surface. I like to give the dough a bit of a massage at this time, poking the dough before rolling it out.

Roll out the dough into a 10 inch circle. You can pick it up at this time as well and get your pizza singing on and toss it up in the air if you like, but I only sing. Remove the stone from the oven and lightly dust with the corn meal. Place the dough on top of the stone, and place your ingredients on top of the dough.

We go with sauce less pizzas and let the cheese be the bottom layer. This adds to the crust and builds this great base for the pizza. The rest of your toppings is endless. You know how you like your pizza. Place back in the oven for about 6-8 minutes until dark golden brown, and dig in. You will be amazed about how good this pizza dough is. Say goodbye to the frozen section and welcome to the wonderful smells and tastes of homemade pizza dough! Enjoy.