Homemade Pizza
Pictured: Homemade basil pesto, smoked venison sausage and locally sourced goat cheese pizza.
Ingredients
Dough
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (110F-115F)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
You will also need extra for dusting the work surface when it comes time to rollout of hand-toss the dough into the final 13 inch rounds.
Seasoned Olive Oil (optional)
1/2 cup Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon finely chopped garlic
Equipment
I highly recommend purchasing one of the many 20 inch x 13.5 inch pizza stones on the market. You can get by using a 13 inch pizza baking pan but hand-tossed pizza is so much better with a crispy brown crust that can only be achieved by baking the pizza directly on a pizza stone in a really hot oven.
The caveat with using a pizza stone is that you also must invest in a quality pizza paddle. I have never tried one of the wood paddles on the market as I had no experience using them, which is to say they may do an adequate job, but I can certainly vouch for the trouble free 14 inch aluminum paddles with wooden handles. I have found, with practice, a properly flour-dusted thin aluminum paddle makes sliding under the dough on the work surface and onto the pizza paddle trouble free.
For years I made all made homemade yeast doughs with just a large mixing bowl and sturdy wooden spoon, but I am here to tell you for a consistent, smooth and elastic dough you can not beat an electric stand mixer with a dough hook. There are many quality stand mixers on the market but I can only personally vouch for the Kitchen Aid 5 quart model.
To brush the edge of the crust with the optional toasted garlic seasoned olive oil you will also need a pastry brush.
Preparation
Put the water in the mixer bowl and sprinkle the yeast on top and let sit for 15 minutes to let the yeast hydrate and bloom.
Add the salt and 2 cups of the flour and begin mixing on lowest speed. When the flour has been well incorporated the dough should be really sticky and like the consistency of homemade craft paste/glue like used to be taught in grade school.
Add the remaining flour a little at a time until the dough pulls together into its own ball in the bowl and springy to the touch -- not sticky. Note that depending on humidity conditions you may need to add a bit more flour to achieve the spongy non-sticky state.
Pour the dough out onto a floured work surface and kneed by hand for 5-10 minutes. Place in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic, wax paper or I use a linen kitchen towel dedicated to yeast doughs that is well floured. Let raise for approximately 60 minutes until doubled in size.
After the dough has doubled in size punch down and again dump out onto a floured work surface. Kneed the dough briefly to get rid of any large trapped air bubbles then divide dough into two equal portions. Kneed each half into a ball and place on a floured sheet pan and again cover and place in a warm place for 30 minutes.
At this point, after it shows signs of raising I put the sheet ban of dough into the fridge until I am ready to make the pizzas.
Time to make the pizza...
Assuming you took my advice and have a pizza baking stone... preheat oven to 500 degrees with the stone in the middle rack.
I am not even going to attempt to explain how to roll out, or better yet hand-toss pizza dough as this is only something one learns by first hand experience, but I found a video demonstration which illustrates the rough technique I learned when working as a sous chef in an Italian Restaurant in Woodside, CA called the Woodside Bakery and Cafe (Apparently this restaurant no longer resides in Woodside but now namesake only has been moved to Palo Alto or somewhere like that.)
Demo: https://youtu.be/VIJlRXMfW50
And how does one get the pizza from the work table to the oven using a pizza paddle? How about another video demo which can explain much better than I but again practice makes perfect.
Demo: https://youtu.be/KRL1FTQZMu0
And the pizza is done when the crust is brown.
Enjoy!