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Homemade Pizza RecipeMy mom learned how to make pizza at home years ago. I grew up with her homemade pizza recipe....it was okay, but I always had two bones to pick with it: 1) We used a cookie sheet to bake our pizza in, so it didn't look like a real pizza. 2) It was always good, but never as good as Pizza Hut. That sounds horrible, but there was something about pizza at a restaraunt that just beat our home pizza recipe. So I want to share this fan-tabulous homemade pizza recipe with you all. Because it truly is fan-tabulous.
Homemade Pizza Recipe Pizza Crust: 1 tsp. dry yeast 4 C. flour 1 tsp. salt 1/3 C. olive oil Dissolve yeast in 1 1/2 C. warm water into a bowl. (How warm is warm? Either microwave cold water for 20 seconds, or just get the hottest water from your spigot you can get. It doesn't have to be hard!) Combine the flour and salt; drizzle the olive oil over the flour mixgture while mixing. Re-stir your yeast mixture and drizzle it into the flour/oil mixture. Mix gently until the dough forms a ball.
Drizzle a little olive oil into a clean bowl. Toss the ball of dough in the bowl and turn over to coat in oil. Cover with a moist cloth and let it rise for 1 - 2 hours.
Now for the homemade pizza recipe.... 1 pound ground beef, browned1 C. pizza sauce3 C. mozarella cheese1 C. sliced mushrooms NOTE: I used this Better Browning pizza pan and loved it. (For one thing, it's a circle!) It's made of organic materials and doesn't have any of the gross BPA chemical coating like regular teflon pans have. You can purchase it on the right sidebar - I have tried it and would recommend it as a great pizza pan!
2. Sprinkle two handfuls of ground cornmeal over your greased pan. Then, gently tip and shake your pan a few times over the trashcan to get rid of the excess cornmeal. The cornmeal will give the underside of your pizza crust a crunchy texture - just like "real" pizza!
3. Spread the dough out. You can use your hands for this part. If you feel like the dough is to thick, pile it on the edges of your pan, and you can make a fancy edge like I did.
4. Spread 1 cup of pizza sauce on the dough. Then add a thin layer of cheese. Spread ground beef and mushrooms over the cheese; add remaining cheese. 5. Bake at *425 for 10 - 15 minutes, or until the cheese starts to get browned on top.
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Working With Sticky Dough
Bread dough can be sticky! If you don't work with it properly, you can have a real mess on your hands.
To minimize globs of dough clinging to your fingers, always flour your hands prior to working with it. It's not a science; simply brush your hands with flour and plunge into the dough. You may need to re-flour your hands as the dough absorbs the flour.
Better Browning makes a great pizza pan. It's dishwashwer safe, non-stick, and totally organic with no chemical coatings. I have enjoyed using it so far and recommend it to you as a safe and sturdy pizza pan.
Getting Your Dough to Rise
The recipes always say "let dough rise in a warm place". What constitutes as a warm place? What if it's wintertime and your house is less than warm?
The best solution to this is the oven. Start preheating it to a low temperature (200* or less) for only a minute, and then immediately turn it off. Place your bread in the warm oven and watch it rise! It's the perfect "warm" environment!
