Savory Hackers

It seems that making pizza at home has become commonplace. After all, you can buy pizza sauce in a jar, throw on some mozzarella, pepperonis, and your other fav toppings and boom you’re done! Oh wait, there’s that one pesky ingredient called the crust, that is oh-so-difficult. Plenty of easy substitutions have cropped up, like Pillsbury rolls dough in a can or Boboli. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes these options are quick, easy, and yummy enough to get by. But what if you could have *real* crust at home? Just like they make in the pizzeria down the street? Trust me, it’s even better than Di’Giorno.

Doug has been working on the perfect crust for about a year now. We’ve had pizza on the grill and pizza from the oven, but both require one important point: high heat. If you crank up your oven to about 500 degrees, it guarantees the crust will crisp and puff just the right way, rather than getting soggy and sad.

Our other recommendation is to find yourself a good pizza stone, and even a wooden pizza paddle if you can splurge a little. We found ours on Amazon. If you own a paddle, you can preheat the pizza stone inside the oven while you work on the dough.

When making the dough, add your flour into a big bowl, and make a well in the middle. Add 1 tsp of sugar (a buffet for yeast) and 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast. You definitely don’t want to skimp here; poor quality yeast will disappoint you every time. Then add 1 cup of hot water from the tap, about 110 degrees. Cover the bowl with a towel, and give it about 15 minutes to gorge on the sugar water. THEN begin stirring the water/yeast mixture into the flour, until a stiff dough forms. Then begin the kneading process (we figured a video is easier to follow than photos!) Once you’ve thoroughly kneaded your dough, cover it with a towel again, and wait another 30 minutes. It should double in size.

Congrats! The hard part is over! You don’t actually need to toss it in the air like Doug, you can just roll it out. Be sure to throw some cornmeal under the dough before baking so it doesn’t stick to the surface. Top with sauce, cheese, and your favorite toppings, bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Bon appétit!

Makin' some serious dough.

This can take some practice, but isn't required. You can just roll it out if you aren't feeling daredevil with your dough.

Cornmeal keeps the dough from sticking to the paddle. Your stone should be preheating in the oven. Use the paddle to shimmy the pizza onto the stone in the oven.

Just look at that crust! Crispy, fluffy, divine.

You too can make outstanding pizza from home!