Italian Pizza Dough Recipe

The crust of this popular variant of pizza in Italy is more like bread than pizza. It is a thick-crust or deep-dish pizza originating during the 17th century in Sicily. Essentially, it is a focaccia topped with tomato sauce and a lot of other ingredients. 

With these observations, I have made pizzas at home.

(We makes dough for 4 pizzas, each pizza about 12 inches in diameter):

Ingredients:

• 600 mL of warm water
• 7 cups (1kg) flour, type “00”*
• 2 teaspoons (7-8 grams) of dried yeast.
• 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar

Instructions:

1. With the warm water, Sprinkle the yeast into a bowl. It must be not too hot, and too cold. That’s the kind the yeast likes best. Stir until the yeast dissolves.
2. Place all of the flour on the table in the shape of a volcano.
3. Pour the yeast-and-warm-water mix, combined with the other ingredients, to the “crater” of the volcano. 
4. Knead everything together for 10 to 15 minutes so that dough will smooth and elastic, maintaining your surface floured.
5. With some olive oil, grease up a bowl and put the dough inside. 
6. Put the dough inside and cover the bowl for at least for 4-5 hours.
7. Make a cross on the surface of the dough with a knife. A classic  Italian tradition, that is seen as a means of “blessing the bread.”
8. About 400°F, preheat the oven.
9. Dump the dough out from the bowl and back onto the floured surface. Punch it down, getting rid any bubbles. Now's the time for you to enlist a kid with more energy.
10. After that divide dough in half and allow it rest for a few minutes.
11. Roll each section into a 12-inch disc. Now’s your chance to choose how thick you would like your pizza to be! Would you like it pizza Alta (Neapolitan-style) or pizza Bassa (Roman-style)? Keep in mind, your crust will puff up a little bit as it’s baked!
12. Place the dough onto an oiled pizza pan or baking sheet.
13. If you want a pizza Rossa (red pizza), you can add tomato sauce,  A lot of pizzas in Italy are actually pizza Bianca, without tomato sauce, so don't feel just like you've too! Brush the edges of the crust with
14. After the baking of pizza for 10 minutes, add mozzarella cheese on top and other ingredients too. 
15. Bake your pizzas until the cheese is melted and crust is browned.
16. Finally, remove your pizzas from the oven. Garnish with a few basil leaves for an actual Italian touch.

Some Tips:

On pizza dough, never put cold sauce.

The lesser the ingredients the better is the pizza.

It can be baked in a wood-fired pizza oven and eaten on the spot.

Pizza crusts can vary based on the types of flour used.

Enjoy your pizza!