Sunday, January 10, 2010

Best Ever Pizza Dough

I went to a cooking class through church last year sometime on cooking pizza, even though I thought I had a pretty good recipe for the pizza dough already, and discovered THE BEST RECIPE for crust there. It is super good and soft and I feel like I can throw it in the air after I roll it out. I don't because I'm afraid I'll drop it on the floor, but I love this recipe!
It makes two twelve inch pizzas or three really really thin pizzas. I have doubled this recipe in my big KitchenAid.

Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups Flour
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
2 cups Warm Water
2 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon Yeast

Instructions:
Measure all ingredients and place in mixer or large bowl. Mix together and knead until smooth. Make sure to incorporate all the flour at the bottom of the mixer/bowl.
Cover and let rise until double. It can take 2 1/2 hours to rise. If you want it to rise more quickly, preheat your oven and place bowl on top of stove to get all the warmth of the oven.
The lady who taught the class swore by the pizza stones and special paddle that you slide the pizza from to the stone. I have a stone and rarely use it because I'd rather have two cheap silver pans that I can cut on and don't care if they get marks on them because they cost $3 each.
I spray my pans with cooking spray and then sprinkle cornmeal (my husband prefers the gritty kind rather than the floury kind) on top of that to make the crust not be mushy in the middle.
Separate dough into two and roll out with flour into a circle. Place pizza dough onto pizza pan with cornmeal. Repeat with second section of dough.

Now you are ready to add pizza sauce (WalMart has a really good brand for $1 a jar), about 1 1/2 cups of mozzarella cheese, toppings of your choice, and another 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese.
Some options are:
Pepperoni (with Sliced Olives)
Chicken (with BBQ Sauce or Alfredo Sauce and Green Onions and Bacon)
Veggie (with Green and Red Peppers, Olives, Artichokes, Onions, Mushrooms, Tomato, etc.)
Canadian Bacon and Pineapple
All Meat (Sausage, Bacon, Pepperoni, Chicken, etc.)
Cheese (mozzarella)

To make dessert pizza, use same crust.
Add your favorite canned fruit or fruit pie filling and then the following topping.
Dessert Pizza Topping:
4 Tablespoons Butter
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup Flour
Mix until crumbly and then spread over fruit filling.

Bake either pizza at 425 degrees for 15 minutes or until melted all the way through and bubbly.

What do you like to eat on your pizza? Our favorite is Pepperoni with olives.

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