Homemade Pizza

We really enjoy taking the time to make homemade pizza.  We have a crust recipe that makes fantastic crusts, it is nice and chewy and tastes great.

What you'll need for the recipe

• 2 packages of dried yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 4 cups flour, divided
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup cool water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• olive oil for coating pan

You need to mix your yeast, and 1/2 cup warm water, and 1/2 tsp of sugar in a large cup.  Let rise for 15 minutes.

Mix the flour with salt, 1 cup cool tap water, and oil.

Add yeast mixture, and 2 tbsp of oil.

Knead dough on floured surface for 15 minutes, until smooth.

Place dough in bowl dusted with flour.  Let rise until doubled, 1-2 hours.  We put ours in the oven, with the light on (this makes just enough heat to help it rise)

 

Punch dough down, and then spread out on a lightly oiled baking pan.  push to stretch evenly leaving a lip up against the sides of the pan.  We then put ours in the oven to pre-bake.

After the dough has pre-baked, you can then start assembling your pizza.  We made our own pizza sauce as well.

We cut up an onion, and some garlic, and sauted them in a pot.

Once the onions are transparent we added one can of diced tomatoes

We then added one can of tomato paste

Then we added one can of whole tomatoes.

We added basil, salt, pepper to taste, and let the sauce cook down.

We both like different toppings on our pizza.  I put pineapple on ham on my pizza, and Steve put Pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, and onions

We grated some cheddar cheese and assembled our pizzas.

We baked the pizzas for 20 minutes in a 450 degree oven.

This particular batch of crust rose a lot, but it was still very light and chewy!