Ingredients

4 cups of Bread Flour

1 envelope of active dry yeast (I use Fleischmann’s)

1 tablespoon of salt

2 teaspoons of sugar

2 tablespoons of olive oil for dough prep

1 tablespoon of olive oil to grease bowl

1 ½ cups of water at about 115 degrees F

Mozzarella cheese

Optional:

Parchment paper

Semolina flour (for the bottom of the dough)

Instructions

Mix all your dry ingredients in a bowl (bread flour, yeast, salt and sugar). If you have a stand mixer even better. Make sure you use the dough hook attachment.

Add the olive oil and pour the water into the bowl with the mixer running. Once the dough has a ball shape turn off the mixer. If your dough is too dry add more water and if it’s too wet add more flour. Make sure you add small amounts at a time.

Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it onto a floured surface and form one ball. For clean-up purposes I usually use parchment paper and put the flour on top and knead the dough on it. That way once I am done I just toss the parchment paper.

Once your dough is formed into a ball, grease a bowl with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, put the dough inside the bowl and cover the bowl with wrapping plastic or with a kitchen cloth and let the dough rise from 30 minutes to an hour. Personally I think an hour is the optimal time for the dough to rise and reach perfection.

Cooking Instructions

Divide the dough in 2 pieces. If you want a really thin crust pizza I will divide it into 3 pieces.

Cut a piece of parchment paper and put it on a table. That will be your prep area. Sprinkle flour onto the parchment paper. Put a piece of dough and start rolling it. Once it has the thickness you want you can put it on a baking sheet and put a parchment paper on top of the baking sheet to make everything cleaner.

On the parchment paper you can sprinkle semolina flour and then place the pizza dough on top of it. I always wondered what those little round pieces at the bottom of those Italian pizzas were and the answer is semolina flour. It’s completely up to you.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Assemble your pizza with any ingredients you like. Start with the pizza sauce, then, sprinkle mozzarella cheese, and add your favorite ingredients.

After that, sprinkle mozzarella cheese again but just a small amount and place in it the oven until golden for 8-12 minutes. Depending on the thickness and your oven. Some ovens take longer.

Thin crust takes about 8 minutes, thicker crust is about 12 minutes.

Enjoy.