I’ve officially found the pizza crust we’ll use in our house. I’ve tried a couple, including one on Allrecipe’s which has a ridiculous number of high ratings. But this recipe tops it! Not too surprisingly, its a Giada recipe which I first saw on Oishii. I can always depend on Giada’s recipes; I’ve yet to be disappointed with one. The only modification I made was seasoning the crust right before baking by adding some garlic powder & Italian herbs but its not necessary – it was great just plain as well! You can get one large pizza crust out of this recipe.
Tonight, I topped off the pizza with Canadian bacon, pepperoni, Italian sausage, red peppers & some parsley. It was a great combo! Hubby and I are on a pizza kick right now, as I just recently started making my own pizza crust. Its amazing how much homemade crust can transform a pizza… no more Pillsbury crusts in our house!
Pizza Crust
3/4 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1 envelope active dry yeast
2 cups (or more) all purpose flour*
1 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp olive oil
1-2 Tbsp cornmeal
Add yeast to 3/4 cup warm water. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 5 minutes.
Brush large bowl lightly with olive oil. In another bowl, mix 2 cups flour, sugar, and salt. Add yeast mixture and 3 tablespoons oil; process until dough forms a sticky ball. Transfer to lightly floured surface. KNEAD dough until smooth, adding more flour by tablespoonfuls if dough is very sticky, about 1 minute. Transfer to prepared bowl; turn dough in bowl to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Punch down dough.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Dust work surface lightly with cornmeal (cornmeal will help prevent sticking and make the dough much easier to move). Roll out pizza dough to desired thickness. Transfer to baking sheet/pizza stone. Top pizza with selected toppings. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.
* I substitute half the flour with wheat flour
Source: Adapted from Bon Appétit Magazine, March 2007. Giada DeLaurentiis.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I use this crust pretty often, it’s good. I like adding basil too.
it looks sooo good! i need to try making my own crust soon too!
Your pizza looks like something out of a magazine! I’m going to have to try this crust.
Your pizza looks so good! Yum!
That pizza looks so yummy – and…I’m hungry now.
I’m glad that you like Giada’s recipes. A friend of mine (who’s in chef school) scoffed at me because I like her. I don’t understand why – a lot of food on her show looks so good – and the one recipe of hers that I did try (Whole-Wheat Linguine with Green Beans, Ricotta, and Lemon) – I absolutely loved.
I’ll be sure to try out that pizza crust!
I FINALLY tried this recipe last night (with the half-whole-wheat flour). It was SO good! It was the perfect size for the two of us and had a really great flavor, I think the whole wheat had a lot to do with that. It didn’t really seem to rise as much as I thought it would… in fact, when I went to check on it after an hour I didn’t think it had risen at all. But it rolled out perfectly and worked really well on my pizza stone… though next time I’ll go a little heavier on the cornmeal, it did stick a bit but not too bad. We did our pizza with store-bought sauce, fresh mozzerella, prosciutto, arugula, spinach, and goat cheese. It was AWESOME!
Thank you so much!