Perfect Pizza Crust

I could cry. Guys I have tried 4 different pizza crust recipes and all of them have been bummers. I watched YouTube videos, I studied. And finally today...I sat down and just wrote down what my instinct said to do. And my instinct blessed my soul so much because this recipe was born and its legit the BEST pizza crust that I have made using fresh milled flour. I cannot get over it! SLAM DUNK!

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Perfect Pizza Crust

Ingredients:

2 cups of warm water

2 tbs honey

1/2 TBS salt

1/3 cup olive oil

1 1/2 TBS instant yeast

4 - 4 1/2 cups of fresh milled flour (3 cups hard white or red wheat berries, add 1/4 a cup for extra flour to dust)

3 TBS gluten

Makes 4 individual pizzas, like a dominos medium.

Directions:

Warm water, add honey and yeast to a glass cup or bowl. Let it get foamy.

Add 3 cups of flour, salt, olive oil to a large mixing bowl. Add the Water yeast mixture, the gluten. Mix with a dough hook. Add 1 cup of flour and see how the dough looks. It will need to be sticky but pull away easily from the side of the bowl. You may need to add more flour, just add 1/2 cup at a time. 4 cups was the perfect amount for my batch.

The more dry the dough, the more dense and tough it will be. Sticky = light and airy. Knead for 5-8 minutes to develop the gluten. Cover and let rise for an hour.

Punch down, divide into 4 pieces. Stretch your dough and fold into itself to make a ball. Roll the dough into ball. Here is a perfect tutorial on how to do get the dough into a ball. Do this with each of the 4 pieces just once. Cover and let the dough rest 15 minutes.

Great time to preheat your oven to 450 degrees. IF you have pizza stones or cast iron, put them in the oven at this stage to get hem hot.

Dust your counter or use a mat. Stretch the dough with your hands to make a pizza. Dont roll it, because you will lose your air in the bread. Once you have the desired size, put your dough on the stone, or cast iron, and layer on your toppings.

Bake 12-15 minutes in the middle rack until the cheese is nice and bubbly.

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ZOJIRUSHI BREAD MACHINE INSTRUCTIONS:

Add warm water, add honey and yeast to the bread machine loaf pan. Let it get foamy.

Add 4 cups of flour fresh milled flour, salt, olive oil, and gluten to the bread machine loaf pan.

Create a custom setting on the machine for a knead and rise cycle only.

The settings are:

Preheat: OFF

Knead: 20 minutes

Rise 1: 45 minutes

Rise 2: off

Rise 3: off

Bake: off

warm: off

I always check the dough at 40 minutes, so that the dough doesn't overflow the pan. Sometimes on a hot and humid day, that rise takes off. Then you just follow the normal instructions. Flour a surface, dump the dough out, roll into a big ball. Cut into 4 pieces. Shape the pieces into dough balls. Let the dough rest and then stretch it out for pizzas!

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Enjoy!