Mizza Pizza

   Pizza dough is one thing I have never tried to make from scratch. There's a recipe in my book for "perfect pizza dough" so I decided to try it. I invited my parents over for homemade pizza and bought all the toppings possibly desirable. Peppers, onions, tomatoes, feta cheese, ricotta cheese, sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, you name it. The night before our pizza party, I combined the ingredients for the pizza dough. The recipe said not to mix or knead it too much, as the gluten would react and make the dough the wrong consistancy. I mixed the flour, yeast, sugar and water with the lukewarm water just until the flour was moist. The recipe actually said, "the dough will look rough" and it did. I set the rough-looking dough in a small bowl with a few tbsp of oil in the bottom. It sat at room temperature for an hour and then slept in the fridge overnight. When I got home from work and took it out of the fridge, it looked exactly the same. It had not risen at all and looked very clumpy. I was bummed. I called mom and dad and asked them to pick up a package of dough from the Publix bakery on their way over.
  Before I cut my losses, I was curious to see what my dough would do if I kneaded it a little. So plucked it from the bowl and began to squish it in my hands. It was goeyer and more stretchy than I anticipated.....I wonder....hmmmm. I pulled out my baking stone and slapped the dough onto it. Stetching it into a quasi-circle, I covered the stone and pinched the edges to make a crust. It was coming along alright so I thought "what the heck" and prepared it to bake. My parents arrived with the store bought dough so I prepared their pizza with that incase mine bombed, they would still have something to eat. I put my dough in first for 5 minutes at 475 degrees. After is crisped for 5 minutes, I pulled it out to prepare the toppings. I baked both pizzas for 20 minutes at 425.
   Mine came out okay. The bottom stuck to the baking stone and was very crumbly, like the crust of 3-day-old bread. My parents' pizza came out perfect - golden brown and chewy crust. I believe my recipe would have worked out better if I had kneaded it just a bit more before resting it in the fridge. In addition, I should have preheated the baking stone in the oven to 475 and then put the dough onto the piping hot stone. It would have sealed it better and kept it from sticking to the stone. Next time.