Fastest Homemade Pizza Ever

Friday night was pizza night at my house.  I had company over for dinner and a movie and decided it would be fun to make homemade pizza. 

I thought about making Pizza Napoletana from the BBA Challenge, but it tastes best when you let the dough rest in the refrigerator overnight.  Another one of my favorites is Brick Oven-Style Pizza made with a poolish and baked on a baking stone.  This one also requires an overnight or at least an all day rest in the refrigerator. Since I was doing this at the last minute, neither one of these options would work. 

I could’ve made No Knead Deep Dish Pizza, another one of my favorites.  However, it only makes one pizza and my BF (a non-meat eater) was coming over so I needed a recipe that would make enough crust for a couple of pizzas that we could top with different toppings.

I decided to make the Fastest Homemade Pizza Ever. I had picked up some Italian-type 00 Flour from the Farmer’s market a few weeks ago so this was the perfect opportunity to use it.

2/10/2010 Update: This is a very versatile pizza dough.  I made a couple extra balls of dough and put them in the refrigerator for a couple of days. I took one out Monday night and made a barbeque chicken pizza with green peppers and onions.  It was a masterpiece!  My son’s face lit up when he took a bite.  What a nice feeling! I’ll be making this version again soon.

Here is the recipe and instructions for making this delicious and easy thin crust pizza!

The Fastest Homemade Pizza Ever

Makes: Two 12” thin-crust pizzas

Recipe used with permission: Copyright © 2010 King Arthur Flour Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon Pizza Dough Flavor (optional, but tasty)
• 1 tablespoon Easy-Roll Dough Improver or nonfat dry milk
• 3 cups (11 ounces) Italian-style 00 flour*
• 3/4 cup (6 ounces) lukewarm water
• 2 tablespoons (7/8 ounce) olive oil

*You can substitute White Whole Wheat flour for half of the Italian flour, if you desire. 

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients together in the bowl until it forms a round ball.

 

Remove the dough to the counter and knead for 5 minutes.  You don’t need to sprinkle the counter with flour. The dough has oil in it  so it won’t stick to the counter.

Knead until the dough is soft and supple. Then divide the dough in half. Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap, and let rest and relax for 15 minutes or up to an hour if necessary to fit in with your schedule.

Grease two 12” squares of parchment paper.  Use greased fingers to press each piece of dough on the parchment into an 11” to 12” circle about 1/8” thick. 

Brush or spray the crusts with olive oil, and let them rest for about 30 minutes, while you preheat your oven to 450 degrees with a pizza stone inside.

Place the crusts with their parchment directly on the stone, or onto a baking sheet.  As you can see by the picture, I made some extra dough.  I plan to freeze it and use it another day.

 

Bake until the crusts are just starting to brown around the edges, about 4 minutes.  At this point, everyone was standing in my kitchen waiting on the pizza.  I was a little bit distracted so I didn’t get photos of some of the steps in the process.

Remove from the oven and top with your favorite toppings.

For the teenagers, I made one pizza with lot’s of pepperoni and cheese. Since my BF doesn’t eat meat, I topped the other one with bell peppers and onions and a mixture of mozzarella and freshly grated parmesan cheeses.

Bake for an additional 6 minutes, till everything’s warm and bubbly.

Next step is to enjoy the pizza.  We did!

Here is the pepperoni pizza that my youngest son and his girlfriend enjoyed.

This is the veggie pizza that my boyfriend ate.

I enjoyed a slice of both pizzas along with a delicious salad.  All in all, it was a good evening.

Thanks for letting me share my bread experience with you.

Happy Baking!
Cathy