Pizza, how I love thee. For me, pizza is one of those foods I could have every day, or would love to eat every day (but don’t!!). There are so many different options. With toppings alone you could make a different pizza each day and not get sick of it. As much as I love pizza, I don’t have it very often, as it is not very healthy. Yes, I actually said that! I would much rather have a healthy dinner so I can have a delightfully sinful dessert!!
I always hear friends saying that they made homemade pizza for dinner, to me that always sounded like too much work! I’m not big on putting that much effort into dinner. I can bake a recipe all day, but to put that effort into dinner? no thanks! A few years ago I made a pizza dough, that was pretty good, but it was very time-consuming and had to rest overnight in the fridge, so it involved a lot of planning, something I’m not good at. It didn’t work if you all of a sudden decided you wanted pizza for dinner TONIGHT! I made it a couple of times, but haven’t in years. Another thing that held me back was my unsuccessful relationship with ‘dough’ in general. Me and yeasted recipes never really get along.
I had done some searching and asked some friends and decided to try this one, my friend Jen gave to me. It looked simple enough and it didn’t take 2 days!
Pizza Dough
Adapted from KitchenAid book
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp olive oil
2 1/2 – 3 1/2 all purpose flour
1 tbsp of cornmeal
1. In the bowl of your mixer dissolve yeast in warm water – let sit until dissolved and foamy
2. Add salt olive oil
3. Add 2 1/2 cups of flour. Mix for 1 min. Add remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time and mix until dough hook comes clean about 2 min. Knead on speed 2 for 2 more mins. I forgot to take pictures of a few of the steps…
4. Place dough in greased bowl, cover and let rise for at least an hour
Hour and a half later…
5. Punch down.
6. Then rollout and add toppings as desired. Cornmeal goes on the bottom before you roll out the dough. I did not have cornmeal, I lightly oiled the pan and it worked out prefect
7. Bake at 450 F until ready, we liked it at approx 20 mins
Delicious! I was pleasantly surprised how well this pizza came together. The dough was so easy, the mixer did all the work (I hate kneading dough!). The texture was a little dense for ‘my perfect crust’ but was only my second attempt at making dough. My confidence in dough making is back and I will use this recipe again. I will continue to search for a recipe with a bit more of a rise while baking and a bit more of a chew to it. Anyone have one to share?
Erica's Edibles 