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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Best pizza dough recipe and tutorial



This is an ordinary glass bowl. Glass it the best kind to proof yeast in.
Warm water goes in the glass bowl. 1 1/2 Cups of warm water.
Put 2 Tablespoons of plain white sugar in the bowl with the water.
This is just plain active dry yeast. Nothing fancy. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons over the sugar water.
This is the yeast sprinkled over the sugar water. I'm making this as easy as I can.
Now set a timer for 10 minutes while the yeast gets all foamy. That's called proofing the yeast.
You cat get your pizza pans ready while you wait for the yeast to proof. I don't actually like cornmeal on my pizza. I'm thinking of using just the cooking spray.
Here are my pans sprayed and sprinkled.
Here is my creamy yeast water.
Side view.

Nothing fancy. I use extra virgin olive oil. You need 2 Tablespoons of the oil, and 2 teaspoons of salt.
Oil and salt go in the bowl with the yeast.
There's something beautiful about making pizza. Give it all a stir.
If you have the option, you can dump it all in the kitchen aid now. Otherwise, start stirring in flour with a wooden spoon.
Add one cup at a time, mixing on low speed all the while.
Use the dough hook, but you knew that!
Not sure why I am posting such a useless picture. Add flour until dough stops sticking to the sides of the bowl. It's 4-5 Cups depending on how you measure your flour.
I preheat the oven and then set the dough on the stove to rise.
Cover dough with a towel. Shhh! It's sleeping. Actually, you may turn out the kitchen lights as yeast likes the dark best. This rising step takes only 45 minutes to an hour.
While you're waiting for the dough to rise, you can start chopping your fresh ingredients. Usually, I use green peppers on my pizza, but this week red were half the price of green. I also like to chop my Canadian bacon a bit so it is more evenly dispersed. This is the best part of pizza making: you get to do things your way!
My dough has doubled. Time to make pizza!
Now that I'm getting my hands in it, I had to put the camera down. If you love thin crust, roll out that dough, but if you like the fluffy crust you get at most take out places, stretch, pull, and toss the dough until it fits your pan. This recipe makes two pizzas, so cut it in half first!
Here is a Pineapple and Canadian bacon ready for the oven. Want the sauce recipe? OK, I'll go dig it out of my saved files. Be right back!
(While I'm gone, why don't you enjoy these photos of my finished pizzas?)
Three of the four I made last Tuesday for dinner with the missionaries.
Another angle.
Some close up action! Pepperoni!
There's that Hawaiian again, cooked this time!
Gotta make at least one plain cheese for Brindy!
Ok, now I'm back with the sauce recipe. Here it is:

Pizza Sauce by Cyndi

1 Can tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 pinch black pepper

Place sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until warm. This makes enough sauce for the two pizzas you will get from one batch of dough.

The final bit of instruction is to turn your oven up as high as it will go to cook your pizza. My oven stops at 550, so that's what I use. It takes about six minutes to bake each pizza seen above.
The missionaries thought this was Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza! When I told them it was home made, they said it was the best home made pizza they've ever had! It's not hard to make really really really good pizza! You don't even need sea salt and mineral water like some you tube videos show! Have fun!


1 comment:

Rebecca C. said...

great idea, I usually just use spaghetti sauce and made dough from the store, but I will try this!