Pizza Dough and over 1,000 visits!!!!

That Means We Get Pie has reached a significant milestone.  In the space of a little more than 3 months, we've have over 1,000 visits!!!  Thank you all for reading the recipes, trying them out and the all wonderful comments.  Keep watching for a celebratory giveaway coming up in the next few weeks.  In the meantime, please continue to spread the news of the blog.  Tell your friends, tell your family, Like the That Means We Get Pie Facebook page and become an official Follower on this blog page. 

So in celebration of this milestone, I'm making homemade pizza over this weekend. In making any type of pizza-like item, be it basic thin crust pizzas, deep dish Chicago-style pizza, calzones, or strombolis, you have to start with a good basic crust.  You may use the best toppings in the world, but if the crust tastes like cardboard, it's going to be bad.  So here's the basic recipe I use for all my recipes.

Pizza Crust
Makes 2 12-14 inch crusts

1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 tablespoons dry yeast
4 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/8 cup olive oil

Warm about 1/2 cup of water in a cup up to 110-115 degrees, no hotter.  Add in the brown sugar and stir until dissolved.  Add the yeast and stir again until the yeast is incorporated.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes so it gets all foamy.

In the bowl of a large mixer, add 4 cups of the flour and the salt.  Mix a little and then make an indentation in the center.  Pour the olive oil in and let it sit for a minute or two.  Add the yeast mixture to the flour and mix for two minutes.  Add the other cup of water and mix for another 8 minutes using the hook attachment of your mixer.  Remove from the mixer and knead for two more minutes.  Now if you don't have a mixer with a hook attachment, stir with a large spoon for until incorporated and then knead for ten minutes.  The constant kneading will build up the gluten in the dough so it will become strechy for you later.  Place the dough ball in a bowl rubbed with a small amount of olive oil rubbed over the inside so it doesn't stick.  Then rub a little olive oil on the top of the dough, cover it with a paper or kitchen towel and sit it somewhere warm for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled.

From here, you can use it for anything you want.  Roll it out thin, put it on a heated pizza stone and make a couple of pizzas like this or this.  Divide it into quarters or eighths and make some calzones, or roll it out, cut it into squares and make a batch of strombolis.