Monday, March 8, 2010

Pizza Dough

I have been loving the pizza dough from How to Cook Everything. It's a fantastic dough, and it's so easy I'm running out of justifications for having pizza delivered, other than laziness. We've been putting the pizza directly on our pizza stone in the hot oven. This took some practice-- You need enough flour or corn starch for the dough not to stick to your pizza peel, but not too much that the pizza is loaded with flour underneath. I've also been giving the peel a good back and forth shake before putting the pizza in the oven to unstick it.

  • 2 teaspoons yeast
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour (about 14 ounces)
  • 2 teaspoons coarse Kosher or sea salt
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Combine the yeast, flour, and salt in the mixer. As it is mixing, add the 1 cup of water and 2 T of oil.
2. Mix, adding more water until the mixture forms a ball and is slightly sticky.
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for a few seconds until it forms a smooth round ball. Grease a bowl, and place the dough in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft free area until it doubles in size (1-2 hours). You can also stick it in the fridge for 6-8 hours, but you need to let the dough warm up to room temp for about a half hour before you can stretch it.
4. Heat the oven to 500 degrees F while you stretch out the dough onto your pans. (This dough is really easy to manipulate, so it won't take long.)
5. Add your toppings.
6. Cook for 10-12 minutes depending on how crisp you like your pizza.

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