Homemade Pizza Crust

A lot of my cooking inspiration comes from dishes I’ve eaten since I was a kid or from recipes eaten at family gatherings.

Grandma Mo likes to clip recipes from magazines and newspapers that she thinks Sis or I might be interested in trying and send them to us. Oftentimes I arrive home from work to an envelope bursting full of clipped recipes. I love going through them and seeing which recipes she’s picked out for me. She picks out completely different recipes for me versus the ones she picks for Sis. Sometimes she’ll write little notes on them like I’ve had this recipe since your dad was a child or Your grandpa used to work for GE; this recipe book came out in 1962 or I thought your sister might like this recipe because it’s weird. This homemade pizza crust is one of the many recipes Grandma Mo has sent, and I’ve been meaning to try it recipe for a while now.

ingredients.

1 c. warm water
1 T. creamed honey
1 T. active dry yeast
6 to 7 c. bread flour
1 T. olive oil
6 oz. beer

directions.

Mix the yeast with the water and honey in a small mixing bowl.
Mix four cups of the flour with salt in a large bowl. Once the yeast becomes foamy, pour it into the bowl with the flour mixture. Stir to combine.
Add the beer and olive oil. Add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until the dough isn’t sticky.
Once you’ve reached 6 cups of flour, turn the dough out of the bowl onto the table top and knead for a few minutes until smooth and elastic. Sprinkle with flour as needed to keep it from sticking.
Once the dough is soft, smooth and elastic, place in a deep, greased bowl, cover the bowl with Saran wrap and let rise. If an hour passes and the dough doesn’t seem to be rising, set the oven to 200 degrees (gas oven). Turn the oven off and place the bowl inside the warm oven. The warmth and moisture will help the dough raise more quickly.Once the dough has doubled inside, punch the dough back down and repeat the raising process. Once the dough has risen a second time, divide the dough into two or four equal parts (makes two large or four medium-sized pizza crusts).
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Sprinkle a flat surface with flour and gently roll out the dough. Sprinkle a pizza pan with cornmeal and transfer the rolled out dough to the pan. If you see bubbles forming when you transfer the dough into the pan take a fork and deflate the bubbles.
Top the crust with preferred ingredients and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the edges have browned.

I had several problems with this recipe, the first being that all the ingredients listed were not used in the directions. Namely the beer and the olive oil. I had to decide when to add both ingredients. Also, the directions said the dough would rise in 45 to 60 minutes and gave absolutely no instruction other than to grease the bowl you put it in. I waited two hours and the dough had barely budged. It was then I decided to research how to rush the dough raising process. Finally, I found shaping the dough onto the pan pretty difficult. I tried flipping it around my hands like they do on TV, which sorta worked. I was able to make a somewhat circular shape. The middle of the dough got nice and thin but the edges of the dough just shifted and bunched.

I cut the dough in half and made one huge pizza. I wrapped the other half in saran wrap and threw it in the fridge to use for our Portlandia party next weekend.

Overall, I was very pleased with this crust. I liked the slight beer taste. I’d love to try an herb crust next time.

Recipe rating: 