The Best Pizza Crust

I have tried a lot of pizza dough recipes, but this one definitely takes the cake (or should I say pie).  It requires some advance planning, but the taste and texture is far superior to any other crust I have tasted. Plus, if you freeze the extra, you have dinner all but prepared for another day.

Note: I never buy bread flour, so I just add a tablespoon of vital wheat gluten to each cup of regular flour (you end up only using 3 3/4 cups of flour). I have substituted one cup of the white flour with wheat, which worked fine.


The Best Pizza Crust

from Annie's Eats

1/2 cup warm water
2 1/4 t instant yeast
4 cups (22 oz) bread flour
1 1/2 t salt
1 1/4 c water, at room temperature
2 T extra virgin olive oil


Measure the warm water into a 2 cup measuring cup and sprinkle the yeast on top. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, mix and flour and salt until combined. Add the room temperature water to the yeast mixture then pour into the mixer with the oil. Mix until a cohesive dough is formed, then switch to the dough hook and knead for five minutes.

Transfer dough to an oiled bowl, cover and let rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Deflate dough and divide in half. If freezing one, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and freeze. Cover the other with a towel and let rest for 10-30 minutes.

Preheat oven with pizza stone inside to 475. Shape dough into a circle on a pizza peel covered with parchment paper or cornmeal. Brush edges with olive oil then top pizza as desired and slide onto hot stone. Bake for about 10 minutes or so until crust is golden.