Homemade Pizza

There is nothing more satisfying than making your own pizza and the kids yelling "Hey! This is better than delivery!"...you know in the back of my head...I thought "Yeah and 10 times cheaper too!"
This is a recipe that your older kids can help with, and the younger ones can help with the toppings. They will think that this is SO fun! Kid and Mother approved!

You will need:
1 1/2 c warm water
1 package (2 1/4tea) active dry yeast
3 1/2c bread flour, you can also use all purpose flour but your dough won't be as crisp
2 Tbsp olive oil
2t salt
1tea sugar

For the toppings:
Pepporoni
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Pizza sauce
and whatever other toppings your family likes

Making the dough:

1 - In a large bowl add warm water, sprinkle in the yeast (Do not dump the yeast, it will clump) and let the yeast sit for 5 minutes to dissolve. After the 5 minutes stir completely to ensure that the yeast and water are mixed.

2- Mix in the olive oil, flour, salt and sugar into the bowl. Mix the dough until it forms into a round ball, at this point - remove the dough ball and knead for 10 minutes on a clean floured surface. If the dough seems too wet, add a sprinkle of flour, if the dough seems too dry add a few drops at a time of water.

3-Coat the inside of a large bowl with olive oil and  return the dough ball back to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and leave sit in a warm room until the dough doubles in size. This can take about 2 hours. This part is essential to the process.

 Preparing the pizza:

1- Preheat the oven to 450F
2- Remove the plastic wrap from the bowl and punch the dough down, so that it deflates a little, seperate the dough into two balls, place into two seperate bowls and let sit for about 10 minutes
3- Prepare your toppings in the meantime note: You will not want to load up these pizzas with toppings, just add enough that you're happy with it, and leave it be. The dough will not get crisp with many toppings
4- Working one ball of dough at a time, flatten and move outwards creating a circle pizza shape with the dough. Any holes made can be pinched back together. When the dough is flattened and rounded pinch up the edges for a crust

5- Brush the top of the dough very lightly with olive oil, then using your fingers make dents along the entire surface of the dough. This prevents big bubbles in your pizzas
6- Repeat with the second ball of dough
7- Use 1/3 cup pizza sauce and spread around on pizza - about 1 inch from outer edge of dough works well. Add cheese, and desired toppings.
8- For best results, sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza stone and cook the pizza on that, otherwise you can use cornmeal on a pizza pan as well.

9- Cook each pizza by itself in a 450F oven for 10-15 minutes or until the crust is a light golden brown

Makes 2 10-12 inch pizzas


SO GOOD!