Pizza Recipe

[sree]

This is my homemade pizza recipe. I make it almost once a week. It is much cheaper and probably healthier than Pizza Hut.

I bought an unused bread machine at a garage sale for $5 to make the dough.
1. Combine 1 and 1/8th cup warm water, 2 teaspoons rapid yeast, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon sugar, 3 cups flour, and 1/2 teaspoon salt into bread machine and set it to make dough. This take about 90 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 500 degrees
3. Stretch out the dough on a floured surface (Do not use a rolling pin) and place on perforated pizza pan. (This cost about $10)
4. Bake dough for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Top it with either sliced tomato or homemade tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese. I add fresh basil from the backyard during the summer.
5. Bake again until the cheese is slightly browned. Crust comes out crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside.
Total cost is about $3.50 (cheese $1.79, tomato $.89, dough $.50) + equipment and energy.
There is a chance it will taste better if you use specialty flour and let the dough rest for 24-48 hours before baking, but I omit this.
Anyone have suggestions for making better pizza?

[rachels]

When I made pizza for a pizza shop in college, when we stretched the dough, we always made it a little thinner just before the crust and a little thicker in the center (which is easily done by pressing harder with your finger tips than your palms as you stretch). The the oil from the cheese runs toward the thick crust rather than pooling in the thin center. Probably not such a problem with homemade pizzas as with greasy corporate pizzas, but it helps if you like a lot of cheese or have cheese and greasy meat like pepperoni. Also, if you ever overstretch your dough, picking up the edge of the pan and letting it fall back down onto the counter 5-10 times shrinks it back up. Otherwise, the folded over wrinkles are hard to sauce over evenly. Those are my only two pizza tricks.

[Dum spiro spero]

@sree
Sounds good, I have a very reliable recipe for homemade pizza that I will look out when I get home this evening.
Quite similar to yours, but I think it comes in a little cheaper and is a bit more low tech (I just use a bowl and a regular oven tray). The pizza's probably not quite as aesthetically appealing, but it still tastes great!
On an unrelated note, running a mobile pizza van would be my dream job as I like work that actually involves physically doing something and I think there could be a good profit in the right city.