Homemade Pizza

Yummy, tonight we had homemade pizza for dinner, so I thought I would share this recipe with you. It is a plain thick crust pizza recipe that is very popular on allrecipes.com. Credit goes to JASON SHARP, although I did alter it a tiny bit. This recipe yields 2 medium-sized pizzas or one large cookie sheet pizza.


Ingredients wise, it is very simple.

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
3. Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
5. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.

I love to top my pizzas with lots of pepperoni, bacon, italian sausages, mushrooms, and lots of mozzarella cheese. After the pizza crust is in the pan, spread tomato sauce over the crust, then place pepperoni slices around evenly. In a bowl, mix together the bacon, italian sausages, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese together. Spread the cheese mixture over the pizza evenly, making sure none is touching the edge of the pan (so it does not burn)!


And tada! Does that not look delicious? Yummy! The crust is a little bland, but it is alright because there is lots of toppings on the pizza and that is why we all love pizzas! You can always add spices to the dough too before/when adding the flour to the yeast mixture. I only have garlic powder on hand, so I only put a teaspoon of that in it.


A thing to keep in mind is that when you take it out to cool, make sure the pan is cooling on a high rack. I totally did not do this for one of the pizzas today, and all of the steam that was trying to escape from the bottom of the pan ended up going through the pizza and made the crust all soggy, yucky! Hope you enjoy this recipe too! Definitely easy and very simple to make! Leek loves it =)