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This week I am making my favorite pizza dough from scratch! We love making this recipe together as a family and it is perfect for the feast day of Italian saints or meatless Fridays. When we took a pilgrimage to Italy we visited A LOT of places but Assisi is on the top of my list. If you ever get the chance to go to Italy, put Assisi on your itinerary. Absolutely breathtaking views, cobblestone roads, adorable little cafes, and all the relics of Sts. Clare and Francis are still engrained in my memory. We also ate a lot of pizza on that trip so this particular meal is in honor of St. Clare.
Let's get started, I keep all of these ingredients on hand and I would bet you probably have most, if not all, of these ingredients too! By the way, this recipe is so much fun for little bakers looking to celebrate a feast day. They can easily pour in the ingredients, knead the dough with your help, and sprinkle on their favorite toppings. Not to mention, seeing the dough rise to the top of the bowl can be fun too.
Prep Time: 2 hrs 30 min
Cook Time: 12-15 Minutes
Yields: 2 - 12 inch pizzas
The Cast and Crew
1 1/3 Warm water (between 100-100 degrees F)
1 Standard Pack Active Dry Yeast
1 Tbsp Granulated Sugar
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
3/4 Tsp Salt
3 1/2 C. All Purpose Flour, plus more for dusting your hands and the counter
Get your stand mixer ready and take the mixing bowl out, you can combine all of your ingredients there. Warm your water for about 15 seconds to get it to the right temperature, use a thermometer to test it.
Note: Warm water will cut down on the rise time but you don't want to go over 130 degrees, that will kill the yeast.
Pour in 1 1/3 cup warm water.
Add in the entire packet of yeast.
Sprinkle in 1 tbsp granulated sugar. Adding the sugar will activate the yeast so don't forget it!
Whisk the ingredients until they are all combined.
Cover it with a clean tea towel and let the yeast mixture rest for 5 minutes. Isn't this towel cute? I received it as a Godmother gift from a good friend of mine that owns a Catholic small business called Saint.ionery.
Ora et labora means pray and work, great daily reminder!
Alright 5 minutes is up, back to the ingredients. Pour in 2 tbsps olive oil...
3/4 tsp salt...
and 3 1/2 cups flour!
Make sure that your dough hook is attached and mix on low for about 2-3 minutes or until the dough has pulled away from the sides, like this!
Sprinkle the counter and your hands with flour and get ready to knead for about 3-4 minutes.
Tips for Kneading Dough
Use the heel of your palm to press down into the center of the dough.
Turn your dough fold it back and press down into the center.
Continue doing this workout until your dough is elastic and smooth and your forearms are bulging, just kidding.
Give the dough a little poke, it should slowly spring back up! If it doesn't, keep kneading.
Mine was ready after about 4 minutes so now you can spray a bowl with oil, I used Canola Oil but you could also rub the bowl with Olive Oil.
Roll the dough around so that it is covered on all sides.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let it set out on the counter for about 90 minutes.
The dough should be doubled in size after this amount of time. Take the plastic wrap off and admire what you have done! While delighting in your big bowl of dough, preheat the oven to 475 and let it heat for about 10-15 minutes while you prepare your pizzas.
This is an easy part to get the kids involved in, punching the dough down to get all the air out.
Take it out of the bowl and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough in half so you can begin to shape your two pizzas. You can do 12 inch circles on a pizza stone but we do ours on cookie sheets.
Note: If you are going to do a pizza stone, preheat it with your oven.
On the counter using your hands or a flour dusted rolling pin, begin to shape your dough. I don't worry about making it perfect here, I will do that on the cookie sheet.
If you want to get professional with it you can do like I did and shape it by tossing it in the air.
Actual footage of me below.
Give the cookie sheet an even coat of oil. I poured some on and then used my hand to make sure it was on the sides as well to ensure that the pizza doesn't stick.
Transfer the dough from the counter to the cookie sheet and shape it to fit. You can even make a little lip around the edge if you want it to have a crust. I typically don't do this because I'm not much of a crust gal.
Now comes the fun part, top with your favorites. You can use marinara or pesto on the bottom, veggies, meats, cheeses, basil, or seasoning. Go to town!
Want to know a little secret? I don't put the cheese under the toppings, but on top of them! This makes for delicious cheesy goodness.
Our masterpiece is finished and it looks oh so goooooood!
Note: We made two pizzas but you can always freeze the dough if you only want to make one. You can freeze the dough for up to 3 months. When you are ready to use it let it thaw and rest for about 30 minutes out on the counter before baking.
Did you make this recipe? If so I would love to see it, drop a picture in the comment or send it to me on social media Facebook @HisGirlSunday.
For more liturgical living resources check out the blog section of my website or follow me on Facebook to see what Catholic things I am doing to make our day to day life more joyful.
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