One of the keys to making a good pizza crust is to make sure that it is not too wet after it has had some time to rise. This crust dough is very moist after it finishes rising, but not so much so that it’s hard to handle. It also has a very nice texture.

This recipe has been updated: March 28, 2002

We pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees to get our pizza stone nice and hot.

We combine the water and the yeast in the mixing bowl of our Kitchen Aid. After about 5 minutes, when the mixture is bubbling, we add the salt (next time we should double this), the olive oil and 2 1/2 cups of the flour and using the bread hook we mix on low for a few minutes.

We knead the dough with our machine, on speed 2, adding additional flour as necessary. The dough should be slightly sticky, but should be able to pull off of your hands. We add a little over 3 cups of flour and this takes about 5 minutes. We want the dough to be smooth and elastic.

We then place the dough into a well greased bowl and turn the dough in the oil. We cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about 1 hour in our microwave to be draft-free. We want the dough to be doubled in size.

After removing the dough from the bowl, we punch it down. We separate the dough into two balls. Each ball is spread into a flat circle on a pizza peel that was covered with the cornmeal. Prior to putting the toppings on the dough, we give the peel a good shake to make sure that the dough will slide off when we put it into the oven.

The pizzas are cooked on the pizza stone for about 10 minutes (until the cheese was bubbling and the crust was brown). We serve the pizza sprinkled with hot pepper flakes and dried oregano.

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