Food Friday! Homemade Pizza

When I use my cookbooks for something, I almost always wind up distracted from what I was originally looking for, and I wind up finding something else that I get really excited to make. This happened when I was making cinnamon buns. All I was trying to do was find the recipe to make the cinnamon buns, but I came across a recipe for homemade pizza that got me incredibly excited. So I bookmarked the page to come back to, and I had the chance this past week to make it! The recipe as it is written in the book makes 3 pizzas, but I only wanted to make 2, so I cut it down by a third. However, I'll write it here as it's written in the book so you can portion it as you need.

Ingredients for Dough:

• 4 and 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 envelope instant or rapid-rise yeast
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 and 3/4 cups warm water

Ingredients for Sauce:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (28 ounces) tomato sauce

Toppings:

• 3 cups mozzarella cheese
• whatever else you like on pizza!

Directions:

1. In medium bowl, combine dry dough ingredients, then mix in oil and water. Stir with wooden spoon until dough is shaggy. 
2. Gently knead dough into a large ball.
3. Lightly oil large bowl, transfer dough into large bowl, cover, and let stand until dough has risen to about twice it's original size.
4. Divide dough into thirds and transfer individually onto lightly floured counter. Knead each piece of dough into a ball, transfer back to bowl, cover, and let rise again, for about twenty minutes.
5. While dough is rising, in medium saucepan heat tomato sauce. Stir in garlic and olive oil, cover, and let simmer.
6. Take each dough ball individually from bowl, transfer to lightly floured parchment paper, and knead into circle, working from center outward.
7. Ladle sauce onto dough, moving ladle in circular motion, working from center outward. Leave about 1/2 inch around edge without sauce for crust.
8. Top with mozzarella cheese, and any other pizza toppings you like, then transfer dough from parchment paper to aluminum foil lined pan. Bake at 500 degrees for 8-12 minutes, then remove from oven, let cool, and serve.

With all the rising time, this recipe takes awhile to make, but it's not very hard, and the rising can be sped up by putting in a warm place (I put it on the stovetop with the oven on). I like how Domino's crust has a garlic taste to it, so before baking the pizzas, I mixed some garlic powder, salt, and oil together, then brushed it over the crust. The result? It turned out tasting, in my husband's words, "Even better than DiGiorno!"