Country girl living a city life.: Making Pizza!

Tonight for dinner we decided to give the pizza stone a try that we got from Williams-Sonoma during the pizza class we went to (where I was horribly disappointed). I've written about how my pizza dough making skills are..... lackluster and thought I should give it another go. We did buy the pizza peel and the baking stone afterall.

I'm happy to report that this time I made excellent pizza! My ability to make the dough into a circle, but that's a skill I'll deal with later. Misshapen dough is... artisan. Or that's what I like to tell myself.

So, we used a recipe for food processor dough, because I didn't feel like spending 10 minutes kneading and still not getting anywhere. My old dough was never elastic or pizza doughy.

The recipe:
3 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 TBSP active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 cup warm water (between 105-115 degrees)

Dissolve the sugar and yeast into the cup of water for 5 minutes until foamy. Add the flour and salt to the food processor and pulse a few times. I kept it on 'on' and slowly poured the yeast/water/sugar into the processor and let it run until a ball was made. I knew the second I touched it that I had done it right this time. It felt exactly like how you think pizza dough is supposed to feel like. I was tickled pink.

I then poured 2 TBSP of olive oil into a large bowl, added the dough and put it in a warm spot (I used the stovetop because it was warm from preheating the oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stone). Let it rise until it doubles, about 1.5 hours. (I don't know what the olive oil thing is for, I saw them do it at Williams-sonoma and all the instructions I have say to do it, so I did).

I didn't wait the full 1.5 hours. Once it looked doubled I called it good- I'm a hungry girl you know! I divided it in half and put some cornmeal on the pizza peel to make sure the pizza slid off the peel properly without sticking. I then pre-baked the crust for just a little bit, added my toppings, baked it until it looked good (slight golden brown crisp to the edges with properly melted cheese and yummy toppings). I'm pleased to say that it was delicious!

My messy kitchen

I forgot to take photos of the beginning process, so my messy 'after' kitchen will have to do.

Dough at the beginning

After a little over an hour of rising

The dough was a little crusty on top, but that all worked its way out during my attempt to make circles.

My attempt at a circle failed miserably.

Handling dough that's coated/soaked in olive oil is a weird experience. Never dealt with that before and I was a little unnerved at how oily it was, but I got used to it and at the end didn't even really notice.