Bread Machine Pizza Dough, Part Deux

Pizza dough... made by a bread machine. I mean, really: It's genius.

I've even posted about it before. And while we love the tangy flavor that the beer brings to that recipe, I still longed for a more traditional pizza dough. But I still wanted the convenience of the bread machine, you see.

Thankfully, Google came to the rescue. A bread machine pizza dough sans beer.

It is oh-so-good.

We tried this for the first time last Friday--we actually took the dough and all of the pizza toppings over to our friends' house and had dinner with them. Unfortunately, in fear of undercooking the pizza, we overcooked it a little bit. It wasn't burned, but was very crispy. Although we enjoyed it thoroughly (the four of us polished off the whole pizza), we knew we had to make the dough again soon so that we'd be able to judge it the way it was meant to be judged--when baked to perfection.

So another Friday night rolled around, and Michael and I decided we needed to give this another try (plus, we still had extra pizza toppings lying around). Tonight's pizza was even better than I was expecting. We've found our "go-to" pizza dough, that's for sure.

Depending on how thick you like your pizza crust, this makes quite a bit of dough. When we made it last week, we stretched the dough to cover a 17 1/4" x 11 1/2" cookie sheet. The crust was not too thick, and not too thin, and as I mentioned before--this pizza was the perfect amount for four people.

However, for just the two of us tonight, we decided to use half of the dough and freeze the other half. Right at the beginning of the "second rise," I took the dough out of the bread machine, weighed it on my food scale, and divided it into two equal halves (if you don't have a food scale, you can just eyeball it). One half, I put back into the bread machine to continue with the second rise. I sprayed the other half with cooking spray, wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap, then put it in a freezer bag. When it comes time to use it, I'll put it in the fridge the day before to thaw it, then remove it from the fridge and its wrapping and let it rise for 30-60 minutes before making the pizza. With the half we used tonight, I stretched the dough to cover a small cookie sheet (13 1/4" x 9 1/4"). It was perfect for a "dinner for two." :)

Easy Peezy Pizza Dough (Bread Machine Pizza Dough)
(Source: Adapted from Recipezaar.com)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp. water
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour (if you don't like wheat flour, use all-purpose for this, too)
- 1 packet yeast
- garlic powder, dried basil, dried oregano

Directions:
1. In bread machine, add wet ingredients (water and olive oil), then dry (sugar, salt, flours).

2. In the dry ingredients, make a little "well" with your finger. Pour packet of yeast into the indent.

3. Sprinkle garlic powder, basil, and oregano on top of everything. Adjust amounts to your taste--these spices add flavor to your dough.

4. Select the dough cycle on your bread machine; press start.

5. Spray a pan (size of your choice) with cooking spray. Once dough cycle is done, shape the dough and spread evenly into your pan.

6. Add toppings of your choice. Bake pizza in 425 degree oven for 18-25 minutes.