Pizza Dough

I was a bit under the weather this weekend and actually spent most of my Saturday asleep. (Thanks to my mom for babysitting!) Baking was not in the cards for me, however, I did find the time Sunday afternoon to make homemade pizza. 

Since my new stand mixer has a dough hook, I have been dying to use it. We are big fans of pizza and I often make it homemade, though I always use a bought quick crust mix. I came across a recipe for Fool-Proof Pizza Dough on a great food blog, Lauren's Latest, and decided to use it for my dough hook initiation. It was fabulous!

Lauren actually used the recipe to make Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks (Yum!), which bodes well for this much crust, but if you are are a thinner crust kind of family like mine, this recipe could really make two pizzas.

Lauren also had a great tip for helping your oven give pizzeria style results and again she hit a home run!  

Just put a pizza stone (or an inverted cookie sheet) in your oven and set your the temperature to preheat as high as it will go. (Mine maxes out at 500.) Press out your dough on a sheet of parchment paper (be sure you don't stretch it bigger than the surface you are baking it on) and transfer it right to the stone, parchment paper and all. (Once you transfer it, cut off any excess paper so that it doesn't hang off the side touching the wire rack. Mine started to singe a bit and my kitchen got smoky!) Bake for 9-12 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.

The crust comes out perfectly crisp on the bottom while nice and chewy throughout. I will never cook homemade pizza any other way. Thanks, Lauren!

If I wasn't feeling so cruddy I would have more pictures than the one above. Lauren's awesome post covers the recipe and all the steps in beautiful photographs. Click here to check it out!

See you next time with Mini Valentine Cupcakes!