Best Homemade Pizza Dough

Prep time: 15 minutes

Total cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Servings: 2 thinner crust 12" pizzas or 1 larger 16" thicker crust pizza.

Best Homemade Pizza Dough

My husband and I just absolutely love trying new trendy restaurants, trying the coolest newest cocktails in popular bars in the Houston area. When we lived in downtown Houston we were eating out pretty much the entire weekend, sometimes even some days during the week. Don't get me wrong, it was great! But once we moved into the suburbs because of our baby, I told myself that I would make the habit of staying at home more, cooking the foods I love to make and putting my skills to practice in the kitchen. I have always loved to cook ( I learned it from my mama), so why not!

Pizza date night is a classic in our home, with a bottle of wine and either a salad or another side. I have tried many recipes and I have been combining them and tweaking them to perfection it. Seriously, this is the best homemade pizza dough I have made so far from all the recipes I have tried and I highly encourage you to try it as well.

Why do doughs come out dry sometimes?

Making dough or bread is tricky because sometimes it comes out too dry. In my experience. when in doubt always use less flour. When you are making this recipe, you will notice that the dough is sticky, and stuck to your fingers but trust me, it will be worth it. Dusting the surface with flour or cornmeal is important to work with the dough, but adding extra flour to be able to manage it, will make it dry.

Toppings

Think ahead what toppings you would like to put on your pizza because some of them might need to be cooked ahead of time. If you want a classic pepperoni or vegetable pizza the ingredients can be placed at the time of making it. Some thicker vegetables like mushrooms or bell peppers might want to be cooked ahead if you want a more well done texture. All meats will have to be cooked ahead.

Ingredients:

• Warm water: Not hot, not cold. Try to think of a baby's bath.

• Sugar: It adds consistency to the dough, trust me it won't be sweet.

• Yeast: It will help the dough rise.

• Oil: it will add moisture and make it softer.

• Flour: Well I guess there wouldn't be dough without flour.

• Salt: For taste purposes.

Making the dough

If you are making the dough for dinner, make sure you start prepping it ahead of time to let the dough rise. To get started, you will start by grabbing a bowl and putting 1 1/3 cups of warm water. The temperature is important because the yeast might not foam. Try to think of a baby bath where you can place your hand and it will be warm but not hot. You will add the 2 table spoons of sugar and stir until is partially dissolved. Finally you will add 1.5 teaspoons of yeast (I have used both active and instant and both work just fine) and let it foam for about 10 minutes. You must be able to see it foam after the 10 minutes have passed, otherwise, it means that the yeast died. Finally add the oil.

After 10 minutes, it should look kind of like the picture below:

Add the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. If you have an electric mixer with a bread hook, it will help so much. If not no worries, place it in a regular mixing bowl and start pouring the wet mix little by little as you start mixing. At first I use a flat plastic spoon or spatula so my hands don't get messy yet. Once you pour the entire wet mix, you will stretch and knead until is completely combined.

Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel. Let it rise at room temperature for one hour.

After 1 hour, you may use the dough to start the pizza or to pack it to freeze. I always have some of this dough ready in the freezer to avoid making it always from scratch.

This amount of dough will make you either 2

Let's make a pizza!

Start by preheating your oven to 450°. While the oven is preheating, we are going to roll out our dough. I like a perforated pizza pan because the holes make a crispier crust but a regular pizza pan will also work and retain more moisture. The best way to roll out the dough is to form a ball the press it flat with your hands and then use the rolling pin to help make it into an even circle. Transfer it to a pan and add your favorite toppings.

If you are making a 12" pizza with half of the dough, you will bake it at 450° for 11 minutes. NOTE: all ovens are different and environments so the baking temperature might vary for a few minutes. The trick is for the crust to be that perfect gold color and for the cheese to be a bit toasted. If you are making a larger thicker pizza, it will have to be baked from 15-20 minutes as a starting point. To me, making the 12" pizza makes it come out perfect and you can choose different toppings on the second one.