Perfect Pizza Crust

For some time now I have been craving homemade pizza. Although, I had a problem; I didn't have a recipe for crust. Well, I think I may have found it. :) I have kind of been obsessed with this blog called The Amateur Gourmet. Adam Roberts, the writer, takes a different angle to the whole "blogging world" and I love it. He has some great ideas, like this (haha). Anywho, he posted a friends recipe for some pizza crust that was exactly what I was looking for, sweet, and fluffy. Some leave the crust behind when they eat pizza but I practically save the crust for last, I think it's the best part. In the recipe you can use wheat flour, half wheat half white, or all white. I just used all white flour and it was great.

We topped our pizza with fresh basil, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and kalamata olives. We just used whatever pizza sauce that was in the fridge but you could easily make your own (that may have to be a different post).

Perfect Pizza Crust

 For best results, make 2 pizza's from this recipe... otherwise one pizza is too thick and the dough doesn't cook all the way through.

Ingredients

1 Tbs Yeast
1 cup luke-warm tap water
~ 3/4 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cups Flour
1 tsp Salt
2 Tbs Olive oil
~ 2 tsp Finely Chopped Rosemary (optional but SO good)

Directions

Dissolve the yeast in the cup of warm water with a couple Tbs of Brown sugar, set aside.
In your Kitchen-Aide (with dough hook) mix the flour, sugar, salt and rosemary well.
Add the foamy yeast sugar water to the flour mixture along with the olive oil and mix until it forms one smooth lump on the dough hook. *You can knead it by hand if you don't have a mixer, it just gets kind of messy.
Add a few Tbs of water if needed to make it more sticky (most likely you will need to).
Cover the dough with a cloth or wet paper towel and let it sit and rise for about 2 hours or until it is about double in size.

I cheated because it was late and we were hungry so I put the dough in a warm spot in the house and it was done rising in about 40 min. Keep in mind that if it's too warm it will dry out the dough and won't rise too much so it is always easier to play it safe!

When it's done rising, roll out and top your pizzas and bake at 425 degrees for about 15 min. (If you have a pizza stone, use it)