Way back in 1995, we had 2 small children; Rebecca was 2 and Thomas was 6 months old. I was working at night delivering newspapers and my hubby was working long days. We wanted something to have as a family ritual.
We established a Friday night ritual of eating pizza and watching a movie. We have continued that tradition to this day. No one likes it when our usual Friday night fare is interrupted by other events, meetings, and such. We all look forward to sitting down together in the living room, with a large pan filled with pizza slices.
You can use this pizza dough with your favorite sauce to make cheese (or topped the way you like it!) pizza, in a Pizza Roll Up, or as Garlic Pizza.
My Favorite Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 2 cups lukewarm water
- 1-1/2 TB yeast
- 1 TB gluten
- 1 TB Kosher salt
- 2 TB (or so) olive oil
- 5-1/2 cups flour (I use a combination of fresh-ground whole wheat and AP flour)
- More flour for rolling pizza dough
Instructions
- Pour the water into the bowl of a stand mixer, sprinkle the yeast and gluten over this warm water. Add 1 cup flour. Using the dough hook, combine this ingredients for about 1 minute. Let sit until the "sponge" is formed, about 15 minutes.
- Add salt, olive oil and the remaining flour.
- With the mixer on a medium speed, combine ingredients.
- Stop once the dough is formed to check how sticky the dough is. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour (say, ½ cup at a time). If the dough is too dry, add more olive oil (say, 1 TB at time).
- Once the dough is holding together nicely, not sticking to the bowl, and feels tacky as opposed to sticky, knead the dough with the dough hook on medium speed for about 10 minutes.
- Pull the dough out and feel it again. If the inside still feels too sticky, hand knead a bit more flour into the dough.
- Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turning to oil the top. Tightly cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm (but not hot) place to rise. (This dough is actually better if you can allow it to rise twice).
- Gently punch the dough down, recover, and allow to rise a second time, if you have the time to allow this second rising. If not, the dough is ready to use once it's doubled in size, normally about an hour or so.
