I truly love pizza! It’s one of my favorite things to eat. Using this simple pizza crust recipe, you can create your own delicious pizza creations side stepping all the preservatives that are in store bought crusts or enhancers added by pizza restaurants.
We top our pizzas with traditional pepperoni, but our favorites are buffalo chicken, BBQ brisket, and veggie loaded. We use our leftovers, pulling them from the freezer, and I make my homemade pizza sauce.
This recipe will make dough for 2 large, thinner crust pizzas, 4 medium thick crust pizzas, or 2 large pan pizzas. You can also make this amount and cut the dough into quarters for freezing at a later time. If you plan to freeze the dough, don’t allow for it to rise.
My pizza crust tricks are these:
- Toast your crust first! If you like a crispy crust that will support your toppings, toast your crust in a 375° oven for 8 minutes before adding any toppings
- Crank your oven up! I bake my pizza at 480°
- Bake them one at a time. If you don’t have a convection oven with a fan that forces the heat to remain constant all throughout your oven, just cook them one at a time. Trust me, at these temps, they bake at 15m
Gear used for this recipe
10″ Cast Iron Skillet
I can’t encourage cast iron enough, it’s worth the investment to have around for amazing cooking and especially deep dish pizzas.
Pizza Pan
A pizza pan with air holes will give you a beautiful crust on your pizza.
Stand Mixer
I love my stand mixer and recently was able to upgrade to the professional model. With this mixer I can run on a low speed to avoid tossing flour all over my kitchen.
Cookie Sheets
When I need to make lots of pizza for our large crew, I use my large cookie sheets.
Homemade Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- 3-1/2 cups flour, divided whole wheat, AP, or a mixture of the two
- 2-1/4 tsp yeast Or 1 pouch yeast
- 1 dash salt
- 1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
- flour for dusting
Instructions
- Pour 1-1/4 cups of the flour into a stand mixer bowl and whisk in sugar and salt using the paddle.
- Pour the 1 cup warm water and olive oil into the mixing bowl while mixer is running on low. Pause mixer and scrape down sides of the bowl to incorporate all the flour. Once combined, increase speed to medium for 2 minutes to remove lumps.
- Once no lumps exist, replace paddle with dough hook and begin slowly adding the rest of the flour while mixer is on low. Watching for a soft but pliable dough that is no longer tacky (moist).
- Allow the dough to be kneaded by the mixer for 5 minutes to strengthen the gluten. When finished, create a tight ball of dough. If you are only using some of the dough and saving the rest, this is when you would tightly roll the extra dough in plastic wrap and freeze it for later.
- Lightly grease a bowl and roll the topside of the dough ball in it. Place dough ball seams side down and cover with a towel and let rise for 30 minutes until doubled in size.
- Dough is now ready to be divided and used in pizza creation.
Notes
Nutrition
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