Hello.
My name is Christa.
I have an addiction to pizza. Good, cheesy, crusty, chewy, flavorful, fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza.
I’m okay with it. My hubby is okay with it too. Not only is he not a picky eater, he doesn’t have very strong preferences for foods. But, there is one thing he requests me to make. You know what it is, right? yes. pizza. (I’m proud of that.)
Our daughter loves pizza too. She has to. She’s a youth pastor’s kid. It’s a steady diet for youth pastor’s families. 😉
I have been using the same pizza crust recipe for about 2 1/2 years and really love it. I have made it so often I really should have it memorized. Alas, I don’t. I got the original recipe from Money Saving Mom. What I love most – it is FAST!!! And easy! The only change I made was use olive oil instead of vegetable oil. healthier, better for you, & tastier.
Here are the ingredients you need:
2 1/2 cups Flour
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 Tblsp active dry yeast
1 Tblsp sugar
1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees)
VERY important: water temperature. Must be between 105 – 115 degrees for the yeast to work. I use a meat thermometer to check it (work with me here, ok? it works for me:)), but if you are skilled like my mom you can just use your finger. 😉
Perfect. 110 degrees. 🙂
Once the yeast is dissolved, add the rest of your ingredients in a large bowl.
Mix well, then turn onto a floured surface and knead for about 3 minutes or until smooth and elastic.
I love kneading. Do you make bread if you have to knead it? I know some people don’t enjoy making something if it calls for yeast. I, however, love it, and think it’s somewhat therapeutic to knead dough. Well, maybe that’s just a tad of an exaggeration. You get my drift, though. 🙂
Now, this next part depends on how soon you need to have dinner ready. You can either immediately roll it out for pizza, or if you have a little bit more time until you need to eat:), go ahead and put it into a greased bowl.
Cover with a damp towel and let it rise in a dark, warm place. (I always warm my oven a bit {just turn it to 100 degrees, then turn it off}, and leave it in there for 30 – 45 minutes.)
See how much it rose after just 40 minutes?
And this is why you want your towel to be damp before you put it over the top of your bowl:
That way it won’t stick to the dough. 🙂 (I made a double recipe…that’s why my dough is so large. I never make just one pizza in our house.) 🙂
Roll the dough out on a floured surface to the size of your pizza pan.
One of our standby topping combos:
Mushroom spaghetti sauce (I don’t use pizza sauce, no-sirree, and I always use mushroom sauce for the extra veggies.)
Mozzarella cheese
Pepperonis
Pizza seasoning
Another one of my more recent favorite combos is this:
Alfredo sauce (I use about half the jar)
Diced chicken
Mozzarella cheese
Crushed red pepper (because we like it spicy!)
This combination is amazing. Really amazing.
Put the toppings on your pizza:
And bake at 450 degrees for 13 – 18 minutes (depending on how many toppings you have) or until golden on the bottom.
Ohhhh baby….that looks good!!!
Slice and eat. (And if you really want to do it like we do, you’ll cut it with scissors. 😉 Well, it started that way because we didn’t have a pizza cutter. But it works really well! We’ve never bought a pizza cutter because our kitchen shears work great. Although we do get funny comments when we have people over for pizza. :P)
So, what about you? Do you make homemade pizza? Does this make you want to try it or are you a no-yeast-person? 🙂
Have any favorite pizza topping combinations? I’d love to hear your faves and give it a try on our next pizza night!! Let me know! 🙂
Comments
17 responses to “Homemade Pizza Crust”
I want to come to your house and eat some of you delicious pizza – it looks way yummy!
Hey Christa!
Well, I’m just starting to enter the world of homemade pizza 🙂 So I tried your recipe last night – we both enjoyed it! I did use whole wheat flour because of Ben’s diabetes…it was still yummy though. 🙂 I made my own sauce too (a recipe from allrecipes.com). Thanks for posting your crust recipe! I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog each week. Have a good one!
Yea! I’m so glad you liked it! And good for you – making your own sauce! I’m sure it was marvelous. We just finished off the last piece yesterday. It’s so convenient for leftovers!!
Hi Christa,
Well we have enjoyed making our own pizza for years. I don’t know if you remember, but when we were first visiting HBC we had you family over for dinner and I think we had homemade pizza. We since branched out into making our own sauce and experimenting with different toppings. A new one for us is our veggie pizza with non-alfredo sauce. I say “non” in the sense that it is a healthy mock-alfredo. I use 5/8 cup of grapeseed oil veganaise and 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast with 1 tbsp water heated in saucepan. I spread that on the crust and top with sauteed asparagus, snaps, corn, peas, chick peas, and onion. Sounds a bit weird, I know, but it has become one of our favorites in our quest of healthy eating.
I like the website that you have set up here and enjoy reading from time to time.
Yes, I do remember that!! So fun!
Wow – you know, that is the second time I’ve heard of vegenaise this week. The only 2 times I’ve ever heard of it actually. I should try it out! How do your kids like the pizza?
Making this tonight! 🙂
oooohhhh, goody! let me know how it goes and what toppings you use!! 🙂
Yeaaa! It turned out GrEaT!! Actually I was really excited. 😉 I have not made pizza since we were just married (and at the time it was a total flop 🙁 ) so I was a little hesitant to try, but we all loved it! We did cheese for the girls and green pepper and bacon for my hubby-wubby and me. I am really excited to add this recipe to our “likes-alot” list. Thank you! 🙂
yeaaa!! I’m glad it was a success!!
[…] when I shared my homemade pizza crust recipe with you? The bottom part of the picture is said pizza crust. Today I’m going to share a […]
[…] adapted from Brown Sugar Toast […]
You must have ESPN!! (lol)…I was just looking for a new pizza crust recipe!! Can’t wait to try this! Hugs!
I just made pizza yesterday. I used homemade pesto as the sauce and grilled the zucchini, yellow squash, red and green peppers. And there was also mozarrella cheese. I used to cringe at the thought of vegetable pizzas but there are some really good recipes out there. This one happens to be one of them.
I also made my crust homemade. I could never figure out how to get the yeast to work until I saw a certain recipe for pita bread. So now I am not afraid to make my own pizza crust.
hope you love it! I was seriously contemplating eating a piece of pizza for breakfast this morning. Oatmeal won out.
mmmmm…that sounds REALLY good, Abby!! I love pesto – and grilled veggies. Wow – I can almost taste it!!
[…] adapted from Brown Sugar Toast […]
[…] Brown Sugar Toast […]