How To Make Pizza Dough

Every pizza bistro and delivery alike has a cook that knows how to make pizza dough and who does it daily. Even though delivered pizza is much easier, the more flavorful and rewarding meal will come from making it yourself. Here’s how to make the dough.

First you will need the following items:
1- 1/4 ounce pkg. dry yeast
1 1/2 cups water warm, not too hot, about 110-115 degrees
4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. olive oil, extra virgin
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup flour, for dusting working surfaces
2 Tbsp. olive oil, for coating the dough ball later

1) Pour sugar into mixing bowl with water and dissolve. After sugar is dissolved,
add the package of dry yeast and stir this mixture until yeast is dissolved.
Let this set until a foam starts developing on top and it has a cloudy
appearance. When the yeast activates it will give off an aroma of yeast.

2) Stir salt and olive oil into the mixture, then slowly add in 3 cups of the flour a
little at a time (dissolve in 1/2 cup at a time.) By this time the mixture will start
resembling dough, so add the remaining 1 cup of flour by hand, gently
kneading all the time. Add the dusting flour to the dough ball until all the
moisture is removed, and the stickiness is gone.

3) Move the ball to a floured work surface and knead for 10-15 minutes, or until
the dough is elastic-like, then lightly coat the ball with oil and place in a
covered bowl at room temperature for 60-75 minutes. The dough will double
in size, cut this ball in half.

Roll each ball out to 3/8 inch thick 14 inch round pizzas! You can allow for a second rising for a thicker crust (set 5-10 minutes.)

Add marinara or whatever you would like on the pizza, desert or vegetarian pizza, this is where your creativity can really shine.