Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Today is NFL Draft Day. If you've been reading here for a while, you know that football is a big deal in this household. For as long as Michael and I have been together, we've always made a bit of a fuss over draft day. Mostly just with football food, and um, football beer. But still. It's fun.

A few weeks back, I came across this recipe for homemade pizza dough over on Dinner with the Bickfords. I've never made homemade pizza dough before, but this recipe appealed to me because 1) It is made in the breadmaker, and 2) It contains beer. Need I say more?

At the time, I sent the link to Michael, and he agreed that we had to give this a try. It wasn't long before we realized that Draft Day was coming up, and wouldn't you know--pizza with homemade dough certainly fit the occasion.

We spent much of the early day out and about, enjoying the weather. We took Tessa for a loooong walk, and soaked up the opportunity to have every window in the house wide open. Also, since it was so warm, it was nice to not have to spend much time in the kitchen preparing dinner.

The dough came together really easily. If you make this, you'll have to check your particular breadmaker, but on ours, the dough setting takes an hour and a half. I tossed all of the ingredients into the pan, snapped it into the breadmaker, and then totally forgot about it until it beeped at me 90 minutes later.

The only change I made to the recipe was to substitute some whole wheat flour for some of the all-purpose flour that was originally called for. I have reflected that change in the recipe posted below. If you don't like whole wheat flour or don't have any on hand, simply use all-purpose flour for the entire 2 1/2 cups of flour required for this recipe.

Don't forget to prepare yourselves with the "flat beer," too. Since we knew we were going to make this in advance, we cracked open a beer last night, measured out a cup of it, let it sit out for a while, and then stuck it in the fridge until we needed it today. It worked well (it was definitely flat). If you haven't planned ahead, you can always pour the beer into a cup and stir the crap out of it, or you can put it in a container with a lid and shake it to get all of the carbonation out (have fun with that!).

Once the dough was complete, I stretched it out evenly into our pizza pan. We topped it with store-bought pizza sauce and our favorite toppings. We always have "his" and "her" sides of our homemade pizzas. I generally stick to turkey pepperoni and onions, while Michael loads his side with turkey pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, and olives (and usually some extra cheese).

The resulting pizza was fabulous. The crust was a great thickness--not thin, not overly thick. It has a really interesting flavor (I assume from the beer). There was almost a tangy flavor to it, and it was quite enjoyable. We will definitely, definitely be making this again.

Bread Machine Pizza Dough
(Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup flat beer
- 2 tbsp. butter
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 packet yeast

Directions:
1. Put beer, butter, sugar, salt, flour, and yeast in a bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer (ours says to put wet ingredients in first, then dry, then yeast). Select Dough setting, and press Start.

2. Remove dough from bread machine when cycle is complete. Roll or press dough to cover a prepared pizza pan (I lightly sprayed our pizza pan with cooking spray). Brush dough lightly with olive oil. Cover and let stand 15 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

4. Spread sauce and toppings on top of dough. Bake until crust is lightly brown and crispy on the outside, about 25 minutes.