Pizza

Does any kind soul out there have a tasty recipe that is fairly simple to make?

Here's one that came with my pizza stone, with proportions fine-tuned from experience:

  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour.
  • 1 "thing" of yeast -- 1 heaping tablespoon fast-rising yeast, or I guess you can try the individual packets the first few times until you get the hang. Cheat on the high side for a puffier crust.
  • 1 cup water. Decrease slightly if crusts wind up too large.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt.
  • 2 tablespoons sugar. Cheat on the high side for a puffier crust.
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil.
  • Heat oven at 400° Fahrenheit.

    Mix 1 3/4 cups of flour in a bowl with everything else. (Or follow the yeast instruction about what to mix first. I use fast-rising yeast where the only extra step is to heat the water and oil on about "3" first.) Keep the other cup of flour to the side. Splash some on the counter and some on your hands.

    Drizzle about another 1-1.5 tablespoons of olive oil into a second, larger bowl that sits warming on the stove.

    Mash the contents of the first bowl together until all the liquid is soaked up and evenly distributed. Dump the dough onto the counter and knead until you can't knead anymore. Remember, it's good to feel kneaded. Each time the dough starts to feel sticky and damp, add a bit more of the reserved flour. Don't worry if you don't use all the reserved flour. The first couple of times, skimp a tiny bit on the water to make sure you don't wind up with over-sticky dough.

    When your hands are crying out for mercy, roll the dough up into a ball (just bigger than a grapefruit) and put it in the oiled bowl. Roll it around to oil up the dough. If the bowl doesn't feel toasty warm, move it to a warmer part of the stove. Cover the bowl with a warm damp cloth.

    With fast-rising yeast, the next step occurs about 45 minutes later. With regular yeast, up to 1/2 hour(?) more (i.e. 1 hr 15 min of rising). The dough should be pushing up against the covering cloth. Mash it down with your fist. Turn the oven up to 450. If dough is slow to rise, move it again to a warmer spot on the stove. As a last line of attack, put the bowl on an element that was on "low" and has been off for about 10 minutes.

    Wait another 15 minutes, roll out the dough onto whatever you're going to cook it on, and flatten it and form the crust. At this point the oven is ready to cook it for 20-25 minutes at 450.

    To keep the pizza from sticking on to the baking surface:

  • Sprinkle a little cornmeal on the surface first (at least for a pizza stone, dunno about metal pans).
  • Cheat on the high side for the temperature. Don't accept less than 450.
  • Cheat on the low side for the flour and water, so the crust doesn't spill over the baking surface.
  • Total time = about 2 hours.