We’ve been eating a lot of homemade pizza around here. It’s so easy to throw together, and the whole thing, from start to finish can be done in 60 minutes. Many times, it’s my children’s preferred lunch option. I love how easy and fresh it is. The recipe below is for the dough. I do cheat, by using Trader Joe’s jarred pizza sauce, but I will take the time to grate a log of mozzarella cheese, mainly because the bags pre-shredded cheese from the grocery stores have anti-caking agents and other mysterious ingredients in them, which I prefer to skip. So anyway, I make a simple cheese pizza 99% of the time for the children. At some point I did invest in a super inexpensive pizza pan and a pizza wheel – which makes life even easier. I like to serve this up on wax paper, which means there’s virtually no clean-up. In the summer time, it’s a win-win-win. Because we’re a family of six, this recipe will yield you two 12″ pies, but if you’re not feeding two adults and four hungry, hungry children, feel free to cut the recipe in half. I knead you to know, this recipe is truly the best.
Simple Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 4-4 ½ cups all-purpose flour or bread flour
- 4½ teaspoon instant yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder and/or dried basil leaves (optional)
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1½ cup warm water
Instructions
- Combine flour, instant yeast, sugar, and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer, with the dough hook. If desired, add garlic powder and dried basil at this point as well. Add olive oil and warm water.
- Begin to knead on medium-low speed, the dough will come together fast. You'll want it to pull away from the sides of the stand mixer bowl.
- Drizzle a separate, large, clean bowl generously with olive oil.
- Lightly dust your hands with flour and form your pizza dough into a round ball and transfer to your olive oil-brushed bowl. Use your hands to roll the pizza dough along the inside of the bowl until it is coated in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap or a dish towel, and place it in a warm place.
- Allow dough to rise for 30 minutes or until doubled in size. If you intend to bake this dough into a pizza, I also recommend preheating your oven to 400 °F at this point so that it will have reached temperature once your pizza is ready to bake.
- Once the dough has risen, use your hands to gently deflate it and transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead briefly until smooth.
- Use either your hands or a rolling pin to work the dough into two 12" circles.
- Transfer dough to a parchment paper lined pizza pan and either pinch the edges or fold them over to form a crusts.
- Drizzle additional olive oil (about a Tablespoon) over the top of the pizza and use your pastry brush to brush the entire surface of the pizza (including the crust) with olive oil.
- Use a fork to poke holes all over the center of the pizza to keep the dough from bubbling up in the oven.
- Add desired toppings and bake at 400 °F for 10-12 minutes or until toppings are golden brown. Slice and serve.