Homemade Pizza

Growing up we used to make homemade pizza all the time using the pizza crusts that came in a tube. I loved them and still love pizza but have always thought making any sort of dough was too hard. Kneading? How do you do that properly? How do you know when the dough is done rising?

A friend told me she uses this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen. I actually found a similar recipe from Penzy's with the only switch being beer instead of white wine. I've made quite a few pizzas now and it is so good - this will definitely be a staple during the fall/winter months when I don't mind the oven heating up my house.

The measurements below will give you one large pizza or two mediums depending on how thick/thin you roll it out. You can freeze half the dough and use at another time.

Ingredients for dough
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup white wine (I used white cooking wine)
1 packet active dry yeast
1 tsp honey
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cups flour

Directions for dough

1. Whisk wine, water and yeast in a bowl until yeast has dissolved.
2. Add honey, salt and olive oil and stir.
3. Add flour and work it with your fingers until it comes together. I've had to add one or two more tablespoons of water to the dough so it isn't dry
4. Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead the dough for a minute or two.
5. Quickly wipe out the bowl you mixed the flour in. Coat the inside with olive oil. Put the dough back in and cover with plastic wrap
6. Let rise for up to two hours or until it's doubled. To tell if dough is risen: Stick two floured fingers in the dough. If the indents stayed, it's done.
7. Once the dough has risen, gently deflate dough on a floured counter
8. Roll it into a ball and sprinkle the top with flour and cover with plastic wrap again.
9. After 15 minutes, dough is ready to roll out or to refridgerate/freeze.

If you're going to roll out and cook, preheat the oven to the highest temp (I'm a whimp and am afraid to go past 475) and if using a baking stone, make sure that is heating in the oven.

Roll out the dough to your desired size/thickness. Sprinkle down flour/cornmeal before you roll out. Transfer to heated baking stone. Top with sauce and toppings. Bake at 475 (in my case) until crust is done and cheese is melted.

As for toppings, I've used roasted red peppers, artichokes, mushrooms, goat cheese, mozzarella cheese, pizza sauce, italian sausage, etc.