Quick and Easy Pizza Dough

After getting a pizza stone for my birthday, I wanted to figure out how to elevate my homemade pizza. To do this, you really need to finetune the pizza crust. I first tried some New York Style crusts, but they needed some super special flour and making the dough 3 days ahead of time. Not very compatible with the phase of life I am currently in.

Next I tried a Dominoes Copycat recipe, which has dried milk powder in it, and also needs to be in the fridge for 3 days. Wasn't that great, it wasn't actually even close to Dominoes.

My biggest problem was that this dough did not create those delicious bubbles. It was flat and dense.

I can't remember when I tried out this recipe, but I do remember liking that it only needed 1 hour rise time. It has a nice stretch to roll out, its chewy and has a crispy bottom.

Quick and Easy Pizza Dough

Here are the ingredients: 

• 1 ½ cups warm water 

• 2 tablespoons yeast

• 2 tablespoons sugar 

• 1 teaspoon salt

• ⅓ cup olive oil

• 4 cups bread flour 

• cornmeal (for rolling)
  

this recipe was adapted from bellyfull.net

1. First and foremost, get your yeast activated. Mix together the water yeast and sugar and let sit for 5 minutes. 
   

2. Add the salt, olive oil and flour. Add the flour one cup at a time. Make sure you are using bread  flour and didn’t just read that direction and think, Ill just use regular flour. I don’t know the science behind it but bread flour makes a HUGE difference. It rises quicker and gives the crust a nice bouncy chewy texture. Regular flour crust is overall underwhelming. 

3.Once the flour is combined, take out of the kitchen aid and knead for a few minutes. If you don’t have a kitchen aid, you’ll just knead until the dough is slightly sticky and can be formed into a smooth ball. Add water or flour here if needed. 

4. Put your ball into a greased bowl and cover. Let sit for one hour

5. After the hour, split your dough in half. Sprinkle cornmeal on the counter and Roll out the dough over it. Roll out the dough into acircle with a rolling pin or by spinning the dough in a circular motion. Shape the crust by pushing the dough to the outside of the circle and creating a ridge.

6. Now your dough is ready to go, all that's left is to put your toppings on and bake!

Hope you enjoy this recipe, its one of our favorites.