I recently discovered that many professional pizza places (and Italians) use a ciabatta bread dough for pizza crust! So since I had a great ciabatta bread recipe on hand, I decided to try it. But of course, I did have to make a couple of adjustments to the process for pizza…. And the result was a GREAT pizza crust! Best homemade pizza I had ever made, really. And now I feel like I’m never gonna have to pay the high price of delivery pizza ever again! So I would like to share it with you all—mainly the pizza dough, but I also added some quick instruction on actually making it into a complete pizza. Enjoy!
Pizza Dough
Ingredients:
1 ½ tsp active dry yeast
1 ½ cups warm water (same
temperature for a newborn baby bath)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 ¼ cups bread flour (or regular
flour)
1.
In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast, salt and sugar in
lukewarm water. Add oil and blend well.
2.
Gradually mix in flour, adding flour one cup at a
time. Don’t add too much flour, but just
enough to make the dough “kneadable” but still soft.
3.
Knead dough about 1 minute, using a light dusting of flour, if
needed.
3.
Lightly coat a clean bowl with cooing oil, and place
dough in the bowl, turning it over to coat in the oil. Cover and let rise in a warm place, 1 hour.
4.
Punch dough down and lightly dust with flour. Knead 30 seconds. Place dough on your pizza ban and form into
a pizza dough of your desired shape. Rub
olive oil around the edges of the crust.
To Make Into A Pizza:
1.
Preheat oven to
450 degrees F.
2.
Top pizza crust with your favorite pizza sauce (usually
¼ to ½ cup, most jarred or canned spaghetti sauces work perfectly), your favorite shredded/grated cheeses (2 to 3
cups, depending how much you like)-- and toppings, such as meat or sliced
vegetables (meat should be pre-cooked).
3.
Bake on center rack at 450 for 15 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly
and crust is slightly golden. Remove
from oven. Let stand 3 minutes. Cut into slices and serve.
