Best Homemade pizza

This pizza was made for me by the lady that has helped me get started with cheesemaking. Jan, gave me all of her cheese making things as well as her book she wrote and her homemade cheese press. 

I try to visit her when I can and she always fixes the most amazing meals. 

When I was eating this pizza I immediately knew it was the best pizza I had ever eaten and needed this recipe. 

Now we cook this every Friday night and our family just LOVES it! 

This is a slow fermented dough that needs to be made the night before or a couple days before. I made it at about 6am and had good luck with it that evening too though. 

Ideally I make it up while I am cooking supper the night before. Then get the dough out at about 3pm to get it ready for supper at 6pm. 

You know me, I vary a lot and honestly sometimes the pizza won’t taste as good as the times that I follow every direction exactly but even then it's still delicious! So don’t worry if you get it out of the fridge too late or you have to make the dough up in the morning instead. 

2 Cups all purpose flour- mix the flour up to fluff it before measuring

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon yeast

¾ cup luke warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil (I use lard)

6 oz mozzarella cheese shredded

⅓-½ c pizza sauce

Olive oil for cast iron skillet- 10”skillet 

Add the first 5 ingredients in a mixing bowl, use a dough hook and mix until its a sticky dough. (add a tiny bit of warm water to get it sticky if you need to) 

Let it sit for 5 minutes then use your hands or a dough scraper to fold the dough three times. 

Do this 3 times in 15 minutes

Let sit on counter for 40 minutes, covered

Store in fridge overnight, covered

About 3 hours before you plan to eat supper get the dough out and press into a well oiled cast iron skillet. Olive oil is the best for this. If you can’t get it to fit,wait another 15 minutes for it to relax and press out again. 

Top with cheese first, then little dabs of sauce all over, then your cooked toppings, then again with a little more cheese. 

Bake at 450 for about 25 minutes. We put it on the top rack of the oven for 12-14 minutes then flip to the bottom rack. (We cook 3 at a time so we switch them) 

The top will be a little crispy when its done like in my picture

Take pizza out of the skillet and cool on a cooling rack for a couple minutes to keep the crust from getting soggy. 

Enjoy! 

Try using your breakfast sausage then add in 1.5 teaspoons of ground fennel and a good shake of Italian seasoning while its cooking to create an Italian sausage from what you already have. 

Or mix into the raw sausage meat and form small meatballs, brown then use as your pizza topping. 

I triple the batch and use it in a 10” skillet for cheesy bread sticks (same dough recipe, add cheese, then sprinkle on garlic powder, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning)

Plus a 12” and 14” skillet each for pizzas. This all fills up our family of 6 with 4 pieces of pizza left over. 

Watch my videos on Youtube to watch me make this pizza.  (Thursday preparing the dough) (Friday making the pizza)

Comment below with your favorite pizza toppings to give us all ideas.