Friday, August 1, 2014

Best Pizza Crust

Hi Friends,
I am a pretty firm believer that anything you make at home will taste better than buying at a  restaurant.  However, I have tried making homemade pizza many times, but each time these pizzas left me sadly disappointed and wishing I'd paid the big bucks for yummy delicious pizza.

Then one day I found Pizza Pizzazz!  I love this machine!  It cooks from both the top and the bottom and makes your pizza turn out so perfect every time.  I've tried cooking pizza in the over even with a pizza stone but the crust is just never quit right.  The pizza pizzazz gives you the perfect crunchy crust every single time!  It has paid for itself a million times over considering how much eating pizza out costs.


The other important thing needed for homemade pizza is a good crust recipe and I just love my pizza crust recipe.  I love to put a little bit of olive oil and sprinkle my Homemade Italian Seasoning on the crust.  My kids also love it when I just make the crust and cover the entire thing with olive oil and the Italian seasoning and a little bit of parmesan cheese. We cut it up as an appetizer with marinara sauce for dipping or serve it with Spaghetti  in place of a garlic bread and it is so delicious! 

I also love this recipe because you don't have to wait for the crust to rise before you cook it.  A lot of times I'll make the dough then cut up the ingredients I want on my pizza and by the time I'm done with all the chopping (and snacking, cause who can cut up ingredients like olives, bell peppers, mushrooms and artichoke hearts and not nibble right?!?) it has risen enough that it will be light and fluffy!

Recipe:
  • 2 cups of warm water (warm not hot!)
  • 2 T dry active yeast
  • 2 t salt
  • 2 t sugar
  • 4  T Braggs Organic Olive Oil
  • 5 cups of flour (you can use any flour I usually do a mix of wheat and white)


Directions:
  • Mix warm water and active yeast together and let sit for a couple of minutes.  
  • Add the rest of your ingredients and mix (I use the dough hook on my kitchen aid and let it do all the work but you could do this by hand too!)
  • The recipe should make 2 thick fluffy full crust pizzas or 3 thin crust pizzas.
  • Bake in the oven at 500 for 10 minutes or on your pizza pizzazz for about 10 minutes!
  • I've found that if you cook the pizza dough for 5 minutes without toppings then pull it back out and add toppings you will get a much crispier crust!


Freezing:
  • I make 4 batches of this recipe at a time, giving me 12 pizza crusts - which lasts a month eating pizza once a week
  • I cook the pizza crusts without any toppings
  • Layer the cooked pizza crusts with wax paper in between each layer of pizza crust
  • Put pizza crusts in X-Large ziplock bags (the regular freezer size bags are NOT big enough)
  • Freeze pizza crusts
  • Pull out and thaw crusts for about an hour then bake like normal


Hope you love this recipe as much as my family does.  Our family tradition is pizza on Friday nights I love having food traditions for a few reasons:
  1. I don't ever have to figure out what I'm eating on Tuesday night (Taco Tuesdays) Friday nights (pizza) or Sundays (pancake night)
  2. My kids LOVE the repetition and expectation of what we are eating on specific nights
  3. And Lord willing, someday when my kids are no longer living at home they will make it a point to stop in on nights when they know what we will be eating!

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