Home Made Pizza

Making pizza at home is a long tradition for my family. My mother did home made pizza for years and it was a regular request for my slumber parties. Getting to choose your own toppings was such a cool thing for a kid. I find that my children also love having that freedom on HM pizza night :-)

Starting out with a good dough is key.

Dough:
2- 1/2 cups of AP flour
2 pkgs yeast (I buy yeast in bulk, so 4 tsp slightly mounded yeast)
a few dashes salt
1/2 Tbsp sugar
seasonings (optional) I use Italian in the crust when we are doing Sicilian pizza.
Set these ingredients to mixing in a stand mixer.

You will blend 2 cups warm water (nice hot tap water works fine, cannot be hotter than 120* or  you will kill the yeast) and 4 Tbsp olive oil (veggie works, but I like the taste of the olive oil better).

Slowly pour the water mixture into the dry mix. Once it stops sloshing around, turn the mixer to medium for a couple minutes. You can stop when the dough is no longer lumpy looking.

Switch to the dough hook and add 1 cup of flour at a time. When the dough clings to the hook and separates from the sides, you have some good dough.

A trick when dealing with yeast dough, let it stay slightly tacky! This helps with the rising ability.

I place this dough in a cool place (fridge, deck) covered to rise. When working in the pizza making industry, this is how we stored and let the dough rise. Once it is double in size, you can roll it out to whatever shape you want for pizza after you top it with some basic red sauce (homemade, of course).

Fun toppings:
  • use Italian sausage, saute mushrooms and onion, then top the cheese with Italian seasoning to make a Sicilian pizza
  • sour kraut and kielbasa for a tangy choice
  • ketchup, mustard, browned hamburger, dill slices, and cheddar for cheeseburger pizza

Recently I used pretzel rolls from Costco for the crust and that was amazing for pizza crust ;-)


Comments

  1. I'm so freaked out about using yeast..so intimidating to me, for some reason. I do love to pick up "homemade" dough from my local grocery store, though; there is something about making your own pizza :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was very scared of yeast at first! But my grandmother and greats all did wonderful bread that I remember loving (Germans can do up some bread!), so I wanted to learn.

      Hey, have you tried flat bread from the bread isle for crust yet? Pretty yummy!! Or the pretzel rolls are very good too! Making your own pizza just rocks :-)

      Delete
  2. Sounds like you are getting a lot of use out of the Graziano's! Let me know when you need more. Crystal

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are and I will definitely let you know :-) I was pretty excited to get that in our Christmas package, I was nearing the end of the package Ben had shipped up here in October :-(

      Delete
  3. Those pretzel rolls are ridiculous - cannot have them in the house - but I never thought about using them as a pizza base - great idea!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aren't they the most addictive things???!!! My daughter actually thought of the idea and they turned out great :-)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thank you for your kind thoughts!!

Popular Posts