Homemade Pizza Dough

We eat a lot of pizza at Chez Neff. And by a lot, I mean at least once a week, sometimes more. We also have a lot of bread, ala Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. You can use their bread dough to make pizzas, and while the resulting pizzas taste excellent, the dough is extremely wet, and so not at all easy to work with. After multiple pizza disasters of the magnitude where you find dried sauce and cheese on cabinets doors days later....i ended up just buying pizza dough at the store for awhile.

You know what's cheaper, and better? Making your own!

It was time for an actual pizza dough recipe.

I like this recipe because the kitchenade does the work, you get two pizzas worth of dough (I freeze one), and its ready in under two and a half hours, which is doable for a work night. Enjoy!

Homemade Pizza Dough

2.5 cups of bread flour or all purpose (I sub in up to half wheat flour)*
1 Tbl sugar
2 Tbl extra virgin olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp rapid rise yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water

Dump all of the ingredients into the stand mixer. Mix/knead with the dough hook for 10-12 minutes. Dough should be a nice elasticity ball, if not add a bit of flour. Separate the dough into two balls to rise, unless you're planning on making one super huge pizza.

If your house is a balmy 65 degrees like mine in the winter, you will need to create a warm place for the dough to rise. Preheating the oven at 225 for five minutes and then turning it off works pretty well.

*If you like big crusted pizza doughs, use bread flour. If you prefer more of a flatbread, use all purpose.