
I have been completely obsessed with making pizza lately. Several of you requested my recipe for pizza dough, and I plan to include it in today's post. I'll also tell you about some of our favorite toppings so far, and what other accessories come in handy for making pizza at home. We do not have a fancy pizza oven. We just use our regular oven and our results have been so good.
The photo above is of a pizza challenge we did with our son Ahren when he was visiting from Ireland over the holidays. He wanted to make pizza the way he would have to do it when he got home--that is with no fancy pizza stone or food processor for mixing the dough. He made the dough by hand, and cooked his version of pizza in my cast iron skillet! And you know what? It was delicious. You do not need any fancy stuff to make pizza in your own kitchen. The toppings he used were marinara sauce from a jar, pepperoni slices and lots of mozzarella cheese. The size of his pizza was determined by the size of the cast iron skillet he baked it in, which was 10". This made for a thicker, more doughy crust, which I thought was fabulous. You do have to preheat the pan in a 500 degree oven and then spread the dough in the blazing hot pan, which wasn't as tricky as it sounds.
Here is the recipe for pizza dough that I use. It can be made in the food processor, which is fast and easy. If you don't have a food processor, it can be made by hand, you just have to knead it for five minutes or so.
Pizza Dough
2 3/4 cups Bread Flour
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (one packet)
2 tsp salt (I used Kosher)
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
1 cup warm water
Put the bread flour, yeast and salt in the processor and mix to combine. Slowly add the olive oil, slowly add the warm water. The dough will form a ball and whirl around in the bowl. Process for 1-2 minutes. Plop it out on the counter and knead it around for a couple of turns. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and let rise on the counter for 20-30 minutes. Divide into two balls, wrap both in plastic wrap and refrigerate until you want to use.
I make my dough in the late afternoon, let it sit in the fridge until dinner and use one ball of dough for a 12" pizza to feed my husband and I. You can leave the second ball in the fridge for 24 hours, but if you aren't going to use it within a day, freeze it. It unthaws quickly and tastes just fine if it's been frozen. To roll out your dough, sprinkle some flour on your counter and roll it out to about 12 inches. You can pick it up and twirl it around like a pizza chef if you think you want to do that. It is very forgiving, but don't drop it on the floor!

My all-time favorite pizza is Italian sausage and mushrooms. Cook the sausage and mushrooms separately ahead of time, spread over marinara sauce and top with lots of mozzarella cheese. I added green onions because I had some on hand.

This one has pesto sauce, caramelized onions, pancetta and mozzarella.

I was feeling fancy and used goat cheese, cooked chicken, sauteed shallots, corn and cherry tomatoes.
I do have some accessories that I like to use which I think make the process easier. My son would disagree and say you do not need anything other than a cast iron pan.

I have a pizza paddle which I place my rolled out dough on. You put all your toppings on the dough and slide the whole thing off the wooden paddle onto your pizza stone. You do dust the board with corn meal so the pizza slides off easily and does not stick.

This awful looking thing is my pizza stone. You put it in your oven, turn the heat up to 500 degrees. When the oven and stone are up to temperature, you slide your pizza onto it using the wooden pizza paddle shown above.
Your baking time will be anywhere from 8-12 minutes, depending on how thick your dough is, how many toppings you have piled on the dough etc. You just have to keep checking it. When it looks right, take it out of the oven.
I have a cookbook called Truly, Madly Pizza which has my dough recipe and lots of topping ideas. When Ahren made his version in the cast iron skillet, he watched a Pioneer Woman video of her making cast iron pizza and how she spread the dough in the hot pan.
I hope you will try making pizza at home. My husband and I make it a joint effort, and it has been a lot of fun. If you do make it for yourself, do tell us about your results.