Submitted by Steve
DESCRIPTION
This makes a huge deep dish pizza with a lot of sauce. It works best if you use a pizza stone.
Dough:
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Sauce:
- 2 – 28 ounce cans whole tomatoes
- 1 – 15 ounce can pizza sauce
- 1 tablespoon basil or to taste
- 1 teaspoon fennel or to taste
- 2 tablespoons oregano or to taste
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt or to taste
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 3 ounce Parmesan cheese
Other:
- 16 ounces Mozzarella cheese
- corn meal
- pepperoni (optional)
- Italian sausage (optional)
- onions (optional)
- black olives (optional)
DIRECTIONS
1. Make the dough: Thoroughly mix flour, sugar and salt together in a bowl. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water, let proof and add flour mixture. Stir and then add olive oil. Stir until the dough begins to form a ball in the bowl. Place the ball of dough on a lightly floured dough cloth and knead for 8-10 minutes. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover and let it rise in a warm, draft free place until doubled in size. Punch down and knead again and allow to rise for an additional 20 minutes.
2. Place the pizza stone in the cold oven and turn the oven to 425 degrees F. If you put the pizza stone in a hot oven, it may crack.
3. Sprinkle corn meal on a wooden pizza peel. Roll out the dough onto the pizza peel and form a circle that will fit onto the pizza stone. Form a rim around 1/4 inch high around the edges with the excess dough.
4. Brush olive oil on the rolled out dough.
5. In a large bowl, mix the ingredients for the sauce.
6. If you want sausage on your pizza, form the sausage into small balls and cook in a frying pan.
7. Place 1/2 cheese on dough. At your preference add: pepperoni, sausage, onions, black olives, ham, or whatever else you want on your pizza. Then place 1/2 cheese and then sauce.
8. Sprinkle corn meal onto the preheated pizza stone.
9. Gently transfer pizza onto the pizza stone. Bake for 20-30 minutes. When it’s done, slide the pizza off the stone and back onto the pizza peel.
TIP: If you don’t have a pizza stone, place the dough onto a cookie sheet. Cook the dough for 5 minutes at 425 degrees F, remove from oven, and add ingredients. Then cook for 20-30 minutes.