Pizza Dough

I came across this recipe a long time ago and filed away as a recipe I wanted to try sometime. I just never made it because usually I make pizza at the last minute which doesn't allow time to let the dough rise overnight in the refrigerator like this dough requires. Somehow, my mom came across the same recipe, tried it, and swore it was the best dough she had ever made. Well, a few weeks ago I decided to make personal pizzas for a football get together. I put out a pizza toppings bar so everyone could put their own toppings on the pizza. I decided to make the dough, bake it prior to everyone arriving so that I could enjoy our company and the football game. The dough was SO easy to work with. You could get it very thin without the dough tearing. It didn't stick while rolling it out. It was also quite delicious!

Pizza dough
(Note- I am posting the whole recipe- I ended up making 1 and a half batches, and found the mixer did better making half a batch. The whole recipe was too much for my mixer to handle. I recommend making the dough in 2 batches)

4 and 1/2 cups flour (all purpose or bread flour), chilled
1 and 3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
1 and 3/4 cups ice cold water
(Original recipe adds in olive oil, but I didn't have any, so I left it out- see link if you'd like to use it)

1. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour, salt, and instant yeast. Add in the cold water while mixing on low speed until the flour is all absorbed. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and sticky. If the dough looks too dry, add in a few drops of water. It is looks to wet, add in flour slowly until the dough pulls from the side of the bowl.

2. Seperate dough into desired number of pizzas (should make about 6 regular size, but many more personal sized pizza). Round each piece of dough into a ball Place the dough onto a floured sheet pan. Mist the top of the dough with olive oil (I used cooking spray). Cover dough with plastic wrap or damp towel. Put the pan/dough into the refrigerator overnight to rest the dough. You can also make it 3 days in advance and keep it in the refrigerator or put in a freezer bag and freeze up to 3 months (per original recipe).

3. Remove the dough from the refrigerator about 2 hours prior to cooking. Sprinkle the dough with flour and press to flatten to disks. Cover the dough with the plastic wrap or damp towel and allow to rest for 2 hours.

4. If you have one, place a baking stone in the lowest rack in the oven and heat as high as oven will go about 45 minutes prior to baking pizza. If you don't have a pizza stone, you can bake the dough on the back side of a cookie sheet, but do not preheat it.

5. Flour the surface you plan to roll out the dough liberally. Roll dough to desired thickeness. At this point, I usually put the dough onto the stone and then put the toppings. So, place dough onto preheated pizza stone if using or put onto back side of cookie sheet. Apply sauce, cheese and other toppings.

6. Bake at 475-500F about 2 minutes, check and rotate if needed. Bake approx 5-10 minutes or until the dough has browned and the cheese is melty and browned.

Enjoy!
For my toppings bar, I used 2 chip and dip platters. I put out bacon, sausage, ground beef, ham, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers and onions, olives, roasted garlic. It was a lot of fun and so tasty!