One of My Favorite Pizza Doughs

I am a pizza-lover. I could probably eat pizza of some sort everyday. Crust pizza, tortilla pizza, greasy take-out pizza, french bread pizza, English muffin pizza, dessert pizza, fruit pizza, etc. I think you get the point. LSH and I have some kind of pizza at least once per week. Eating that much take-out pizza can get old and expensive and some times you need more than a tortilla pizza. My minor obsession with making homemade pizza started when my brother gave me a cast iron pizza stone, yeast, an uber ulu, and a couple recipes for trustworthy pizza dough. Since then I have tried at least 6 different pizza dough recipes with intent to try even more. This herby dough, from MommieCooks, has become a favorite of mine. The best thing about this dough is that it only requires a short rest and comes together very quickly. Dough that rests all day or overnight typically has a better texture, but this is great when you decide at 5:00 pm that pizza sounds good for dinner. The dough makes a decent size crust if rolled out at normal thickness or two good size pizzas if rolled out nice and thin.

Time: 60 minutes
Ingredients
1 cup warm water
1 pkg yeast or 2 1/4 tsp (I use active dry yeast)
1 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
3 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp onion powder
2 1/2 cups flour

Preheat your oven to 425 and if you have a pizza stone, throw it in as well.

Dissolve the sugar in the warm water and mix in the yeast. Let this sit for about 10-15 minutes. This is to wake up the yeast. I don't think I would wake up very happy if I was swimming in water but I guess this is what they like.

Add in the oil, salt, garlic, basil, and onion powder.

Add in the flour in portions. You can mix this in a stand mixer with a dough hook, but it also comes together well with a wooden spoon and a bit of hand kneading. When I've had a stressful day at work I like recipes that require kneading. Good stress relief.

Once the flour is all mixed in, let the dough rest for about 10 minutes.

I roll out the dough on parchment paper sprinkled with corn meal. The corn meal is optional, but I kind of like the addition. Roll the dough out to your desired thickness. Before putting it in the oven stab the crust all over with a fork. This is also great stress relief. Another optional step is drizzling the crust with olive oil. I'm a big fan of olive oil and use it pretty frequently. Once you have done all this, stick the crust in the oven. To get the crust to the oven, I slide the parchment onto a cookie sheet to transfer it to the stone in the oven. I gently slide the parchment from the sheet to the oven. So far I have never dropped it!

Before...

After! Notice the slightly browned edges.

Let it pre-bake for 7-10 minutes or until it starts to get golden. Slide the paper out again and top it with your favorite toppings. LSH is a pepperoni and green pepper fan and I like the addition of mushrooms. Also, if you have never tried caramelized onions on pizza, you should try it. Turkey pepperoni is also a good alternative to the regular stuff if you are looking to good down some calories.

The topped pizza goes back in the oven for another 7-10 minutes (do you see a pattern here) or until it has reached desired bubbly crispyness.

There will definitely be another pizza dough recipe on here in the future, but this is a good standby!

Original post at http://www.mommiecooks.com/2010/06/07/perfect-pizza-crust/