Pizza Dough & Prep

Author: Justin
Serves 2-3



 
 

3/4 cup warm water 1 Tbl. olive oil
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour 1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar 1 tsp. dry yeast

Place ingredients into bread machine in order (water, oil, flour, salt, sugar, yeast).  Set on Pizza Dough setting, which will run for one hour.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees, with pizza stone on the shelf in the middle of the oven.

Spread a lot of corn meal on the pizza peel.  Then spread some more on.  Remove complete dough from machine, and set on peel.  Roll out a bit with rolling pin, to maybe half-size.  Pick up, and begin to spin a bit on the knuckles, pulling the dough gently outwards with each toss.  Do this until the pizza is roughly the right size (big enough to almost touch the edges of the flat part of the peel).  It is fine if the center is paper-thin, so long as it doesn't break.  Place down on the peel, and use fingers and rolling pin to even out the edges.

Spread toppings on pizza -- sauce, then solids, then cheese.  (Exact choice of toppings depends on what kind of pizza you're making.)  Spread all almost all the way to the edge -- leave no more than 1/2" at the edge.

Slide pizza from peel onto pizza stone; there will usually be a bit of smoke.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until cheese and crust are browning nicely.  Remove stone, and serve immediately.

Notes and Variations

This makes a tasty pizza that's generally a bit more than we can eat for dinner.  Current favorite variations are Thai Shrimp with Peanut Sauce, Pizza Faux Venezia and Pesto with Shrimp.  (Yes, we like shrimp on our pizza.)

For nights when I want a shortcut: Shaw's sells a perfectly decent pizza crust, but it's much too big.  (About 22 oz, of which we need about 16.)  Let it warm up a little bit, then spread it as normal, but spin and roll it out and big as possible.  Then cut the edges off, sizing the result to the peel.  The result is a good thin crust with good flavor and crispness.

Sources

Dough recipe adapted from bread machine's cookbook; I'm recording it here in case anything happens to that cookbook.  (However, the cookbook is clearly intended for a thicker crust -- their recommendations are for far too much dough.)  The rest was made up by trial and error.