Making pizza from scratch is a labor of love. While delivery or frozen pizzas have a certain ease, making your own pizza ensures you use the best quality ingredients and a pizza made to your liking with your choice of sauce, cheese and toppings.
The pizza dough needs to be made in advance in order for the dough to rise before forming it into your pizza crust. Ideally, the dough should rise in the first hour, but I find it often takes several hours for the dough to properly rise.
To avoid a soggy crust, I use a pizza stone. To use the pizza stone, you need to place the stone in a cold oven and preheat the oven and the stone to 500 degrees. At this temperature, the pizza will cook in just 10 minutes. Placing the pizza stone in a hot oven will not warm the stone properly and could lead to the stone cracking. To properly make the pizza, I use a thin 13 inch pizza pan to spread the dough and add the toppings. I have not had any success cooking the pizza without the pan. Don’t skip the cornmeal or semolina flour under the dough, as it will prevent the dough from sticking to the pan.
Equipment:
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Homemade Pizza
Ingredients
Instructions
- Dissolve yeast into warm water with sugar. Allow to dissolve for 30 minutes.
- Add salt and flour and combine completely. Remove from bowl and knead on a lightly floured surface. If dough remains sticky, add small amounts of additional flour.
- Place dough in a clean, oiled bowl and set aside in a warm location to rise for 30 minutes. If dough does not rise, wait for several hours until it does. When dough rises, split into two portions.
- Sprinkle pan with a large pinch of cornmeal or semolina flour.
- Mix tomato sauce with garlic powder, oregano and basil.
- Place a pizza stone in your cold oven and heat to 500 degrees. Using a 13 Inch pan, lightly spread cornmeal. Using your fingers, press dough and stretch it evenly over the pan. Spread sauce evenly over dough, followed by the grated cheese and pepperoni.
- Place pan on pizza stone and bake for 10 minutes.