Homemade Pizza Dough

 

Let me set the scene for you.

A historic snow storm, no..BLIZZARD. No…SNOWZILLA was pummeling the state of Maryland. In his tiny abode The Unmanly Chef was in a panic as he was coming to the quick realization that he was…out of pizza dough….

So there I am, sitting in my kitchen like a schmuck with a delicious pizza in mind and no pizza dough to speak of! I usually would just buy some from Whole Foods, but because of the literal world ending snowpacalypse that befell me I was forced to make pizza dough from scratch. And let me tell you…it’s really easy.

Luckily, I had some active dry yeast sitting in my fridge, so I was in business. Pizza dough for me was always a veritable kitchen boogeyman as I thought the idea of bread making and using yeast was way to involved for my kitchen endeavors. But a hellacious snow storm will make you do crazy things.

I’ve covered pizza before using a store-bought pizza dough, which I will say is still pretty damn good. But for the cost of one box of that pizza dough, I can make 5 or 6 of my own pizza doughs. Me likey $$$.

Obviously I didn’t make this recipe from my own creation so I used the following recipe from Bread World (seems apt).

Recipe – Pizza Dough

Ingredients

2-1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour

Method

Step 1- Mix the flour, yeast, and salt together

Step 2- Then add your warm water and olive oil.

Step 3- Mix with your hands until you have a crumbly ball, work the dough for 6 minutes until it’s soft and elastic.

Step 4 – Place in a bowl with a moist towel or piece of plastic wrap

Step 5- Let it rise for at least 30 minutes and then roll it out and sprinkle with cornmeal and start the pizza party!

It was extremely easy to make and it freezes well, so now I have a pizza dough reserve sitting comfortably in my freezer.

This dough eventually turned into this Pistachio Pesto Pizza (post to come later)