Basic Pizza Crust

Pizza making is a big deal at our house. People have been asking for a pizza crust recipe, and I'm going to give you two. I'll start with a very simple crust that is difficult to mess up. Its quick, easy and certainly makes a good pizza. It's my mom's recipe and the only one I ever used until about 6-8 months ago. It is the perfect recipe for making your crusts ahead and freezing or for multiplying to make large amounts for a party or dinner guests. In a following post I'll also share the one we've grown to like a little better over the past few months. It takes more time, but is a lot of fun and well worth the effort!

Basic Pizza Crust
5-6 cups flour
2 Tbs yeast
2 tsp salt
4 Tbs oil
2 cups warm water

Preheat oven to 425F (210C). Combine 2 1/2 cups of flour, yeast, and salt. Add water and oil. Mix well. Stir in as much of remaining flour as possible. Once you can no longer stir with a spoon, pour dough onto floured surface and knead in additional flour until you have a smooth, stiff dough--4-6 minutes.

Cover bowl and let dough rest for 10 minutes while you begin to prepare pizza toppings. Grease 2 large pizza pans or cookie sheets (about 12 inch round or regular sized rectangle cookie sheets). Place half of dough in each pan and press down to even thickness, building a slight crust up on the edges of the pans. Bake 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and add sauce and toppings. Bake for an additional 10 minutes. Slice and serve!

**For Frozen Pizzas: Bake dough for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. Add toppings to dough and freeze. When ready to serve, place frozen pizza in preheated oven (425F) and bake for 15-20 minutes until cheese is bubbly and pizza is well heated.