Monday, January 19, 2009

Pizza Pizza

I love pizza. Adore pizza. I could eat pizza every day. I simply love, love, love, Pizza. Unfortunately because eating out is so expensive, we can't afford to eat it all the time. So I thought it was time to take the plunge and make my own. I've done it before, but never with great success b/c I always used a store bought crust. Never again my dear readers!! I can make it myself!!!!

Thanks to my wonderful husband, I have a FANTASTIC bread machine. And with my fantastic bread machine, I can make even more fantastic pizza dough.

If you don't have a bread machine, I can't help you with the crust, I'm sorry!

Pizza Crust Dough Recipe for 2lbs of dough


*it makes two thick crust pizzas* However, I have a 16" pizza pan and a 12", so I get one thin and one thick. The kids always get the thick crust and I make a thinner one for myself

1-1/4 cups 80*F Water or 27*C
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp white sugar
2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp dry powdered milk
4 cups bread flour
2 tsp Active Dry Yeast

Make sure you add the ingredients in the order given.
Put it in the dough cycle in your bread machine and wait. Mine actually has a pizza dough cycle, and takes about an hour.

Once your dough is prepared, divide it up however you want. I usually do 2/3ds and 1/3d, mine being the smaller. Roll it out and make sure you use a slightly floured surface. Place your prepared pizza dough in the pan and start with your ingredients.


Pizza "fillings"

Pizza sauce (our favorite is actually WalMart's great value brand with the green lid)
Pepperoni
Ham/Cdn Bacon
Pizza blend Cheese
Pizza Sauce

I usually do a mix of that for the kids. For myself, I always do pepperoni first, then ham, and then finely diced onion, and then the cheese. We'll be trying something different though, I think I might make an all meat pizza, or Hawaiian if the kids will eat it.

Bake one pizza at a time for about 11 minutes at 425. My recipe calls for 20 minutes, but my pizzas were way over-cooked and slightly burned at that time. 11 minutes is just perfect, in my opinion.

So now that you know how to make your own pizza, you can save yourself a few bucks and not have to go out. Now, I'm not saying we won't ever buy pizza again, because we absolutely adore Papa Murphy's Chicago style stuffed pizza, but this is an almost-as-good substitute. And my pizza tastes better cold anyway!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love making my own pizza! Another thing you can do with the dough is make calzones. I get 2 calzones per 1 pizza crust amount of dough. Just stick your topping inside, instead of one top. Great recipe!

Anonymous said...

That might be somethign to try!! I could make smaller ones for the kids. Hmm...you've given me a great idea for friday night instead of pizza. Thanks!!!

Jenn said...

It's recipes like this that make me want to buy a bread machine! Does the dough freeze well-maybe if I rolled it out to this size I'd want & then freeze it? 2 pounds sounds like a lot for us but would be worth making it if I could freeze half of it for later in the week!

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