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Prep Time: 0 Minutes Cook Time: 6 Minutes |
Ready In: 6 Minutes Servings: 10 |
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For many years I have tried to master the art of pizza dough. Just a week ago I discovered by watching a clip, just how to handle dough. I don't need my bread machine or food processor. The dough is your friend. Ingredients:
pizza paddle and stone....heat oven with stone in it at 500 degrees for one hour. stone must be on the lowest level. |
in a large bowl add |
2 tsp. yeast |
2 tsp. sugar |
1/4 cup of 100 degree water |
stir the above and let rest for 5 minutes. |
4 cups of flour ( i use bread flour) |
1 tsp. salt |
1/4 cup olive oil |
1 cup warm water |
blend the dry ingredients add to the yeast bowl. add the rest of the ingredients. |
corn meal |
Directions:
1. With a fork combine all of the ingredients by stirring. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl, if not add a little more water. Mix until the dough starts to form a ball.
2. Remove the dough and on a floured surface start to knead the dough and add more flour as needed to make the dough easy to work with.
3. I knead the dough for about 5 minutes. I just keep turning and pressing and adding more flour until I can feel that the dough has a nice springy texture.
4. At this point I cut the dough in half and put each ball into a zip lock bag with plenty of olive oil to coat the dough. Leave a slight opening in the top so the dough can grow. Place in the refrigerator and leave for about 12 hours or over night.
5. Take a ball of dough out and I cut that in half so I can make two smaller pizzas. Heavily flour a clean surface and place the ball in the middle. NOW....here is what I used to do wrong. When I was attempting to spread the dough I was afraid to use a lot of flour. Use as much flour as it takes to make the dough spread.
6. I have never done this before but I used a rolling pin. Works fabulously. But if it isn't spreading as nicely as you would like, flip the dough over, let rest for a few minutes and start rolling again.
7. You can roll the dough out on the paddle that you will transfer the pizza to the stone on.
8. Place the dough on the paddle coated with corn meal and give it one more rolling. Coat the entire dough with olive oil (I use a paint brush) before adding the sauce and the toppings.
9. Slide the pizza onto the stone very carefully.
10. Bake for about 5 or 6 minutes for thin crust. If you are using the entire ball half you will want to rotate the pizza and bake longer because of the thickness.
11. The dough also freezes nicely whether you leave it in a ball or roll it out on pans and place in the freezer.
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