Absolutely Delightful Homemade Pizza

Please note: This is not my pizza. My pizza looked a LOT better than this. Anyway, it was delicious.

Two-three-ish cups of flour
1/8 cup of milk
Two and a half tablespoons of butter
One and a half teaspoons of active dry yeast (or half a packet).
Half a teaspoon of salt
Two and a half teaspoons of sugar
Pizza sauce
Cheese (I use a mix of mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, and jack if you can get it)
Whatever toppings your little heart desires

Put your yeast in a large bowl. Add half a cup of warm water and stir until there are no lumps. If you're too impatient to wait for your water to warm up and you use cold water, I will not be held responsible for whatever happens to your dough.

Melt the butter in a microwave-safe dish and add to the yeast, along with the milk, sugar, and salt. Stir until it's a light-tan-ish color and everything is more or less mixed in. Add one cup of flour and stir until you have a gooey, sticky mess. Add more flour until the dough is just barely sticking to the spoon. (By the way, you should be using a wooden spoon.)

Dust your counter top with a little flour, and knead the dough for five-ish minutes, or until it's a nice, cohesive lump and is starting to want to expand. (Smellen--here's a great job for Natey that he can't get too messy doing!) When that happens, shape the dough into a ball, press it flat, and start pinching/pushing/pulling it into shape.

You can use a rolling pin if you want, but I think that takes all the fun out of it. It's also harder to control the shape. At this point, you'll want to coat your cooking sheet with non-stick cooking spray, and then transfer the dough to the sheet. Alternatively, you can coat your sheet with cornmeal, but I always think that just makes more of a mess. Now's a good time to preheat your oven to 400F.


Add your sauce. I used a regular can of tomato sauce (actually, about half the can) and tossed some Italian herbs on there. Then, the cheese! As much or as little as you want. Mmm...cheese. And then the toppings. Go crazy. Enjoy. Bake for at least ten minutes, and then start checking on it. It's done when the cheese is starting to bubble and the crust is starting to get on the brown side of golden.

For a special kick, change the salt to garlic salt and add some Italian herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil) to the dough at the same time you add the first cup of flour.

The boring stuff:
This recipe made just enough for me and Tim. To feed more, double the crust recipe. Or triple it. Or whatever. See if I care.
Difficulty: 3
Takes half an hour ish, plus or minus bake time.