- 4 cups whole wheat or white flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar or honey
- 1 packet of yeast, or 3 teaspoons
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1-1/3 cups warm water
In a big bowl combine the flour, sugar,
yeast, and salt. Mix it up together with a
fork or spoon. Add the oil and warm water.
The water should be luke warm, not hot. I
tap water that is warm when I stick my
finger in it, like a baby's bath water,
about 100°. Use a wooden spoon to stir all
of this up until it begins to form a soft
dough. Take out the spoon and dig in with
your hands. If you use a big enough bowl,
you can knead the dough right in the bowl.
This is how I usually do it, because it
saves the mess and bother of cleaning up the
counter. The dough doesn't have to be
kneaded as much as regular bread dough.
Usually I do it for about two minutes, or
until the dough is smooth, resilient and
well formed. Next the dough has to rest for
twenty minutes. Sometimes I rest it for as
little as ten minutes, but the best results
are obtained from allowing it to rest the
full twenty minutes. The reason for this
step has to do with gluten, or the protein
in the flour. Kneading the dough activates
the protein. It also makes the dough
difficult to roll out because it keeps
trying to stay in a ball, instead of
cooperating and becoming flat. Allowing the
dough to rest makes the job of pressing the
dough into the pan easier because the gluten
relaxes and then the dough is very easy and
cooperative about flattening out into a
round pizza shape (or rectangle shape, or
whatever).
After the dough has rested for a while,
divide it into two balls to press into your
pans. This amount of dough is enough to
cover 2 round pizza pans or 2 - 9 by 13-inch
rectangular pans. If you have a bevy of boy
scouts, or a gaggle of girl scouts, give
them each their own pie or cake pan, and let
them make individual pizzas. This recipe
will make 4 to 6 pie-plate sized pizzas.
They will think you are the finest den
mother in town.
Press the dough into the pans, to the best
of your ability. Then the crusts must be
PRE-BAKED before filling. Preheat your oven
to 425°. Bake the plain crusts for about 8
minutes, or until they puff up and appear
slightly dry on the surface. This is the
only way I have been able to make sure these
crusts cooks clear through when I make
pizza. If I don't prebake these crusts, I
end up with under cooked pizza centers. The
kids don't actually notice things like this,
but I do, and I prefer the crusts to be
thoroughly cooked, so I ALWAYS pre-bake the
crusts from this recipe.
Remove the partially cooked crusts from the
oven. Top with tomato sauce, cheese and what
ever else you like. We make a lot of half
and half pizzas, so every one can choose
their own toppings. Regardless, bake at 425°
until the cheese is hot and bubbly, or about
10 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly before
eating so you don't burn the roof of your
mouth. Makes 2 large round pizzas or 2
rectangular ones.
|
