Pizza Margherita

Actually, there's no alcohol content in this pizza! But the flavor will intoxicate you. And the crust, WOW! It tastes and feels like restaurant quality. The key is that you try to use the best ingredients you can find (and afford) since this recipe calls for only a few things to really bring out the flavor. Recipe by Williams Sonoma.

Crust

5 tsp active dry yeast

2 1/4 cups warm water (1-5-115F)

2 tsp sugar

1/4 cup oil

5 cups bread flour

1 tbsp sea salt

Topping

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup loosely packed fresh basil, finely shredded
6 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced

1 lb fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced 1/4" inch thick (the wet mozzarella that's sold as a chunk)

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Making the dough.

Dissolve yeast and warm water in large mixing bowl and let stand for 5 minutes, until slightly foamy. Add sugar, oil, salt and 4 cups of flour. Knead on low speed until soft smooth and elastic, adding the remaining cup of flour slowly as needed for the dough to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Prepare a large bowl, lightly greased with oil. Transfer dough into greased bowl and forming into a ball and rotating in the oil so the dough ball is round and smooth. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm area until double in size, about 1 hour.

For a more flavorful dough (and it's worth it), let rise as stated above, then punch down dough with palm of hand, recover with plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator in the morning so it's ready to work on a 4PM for dinner prep.

OR you can skip the refrigeration and just punch down dough (after the first rise, of course) with palm of hand and cut/divide dough in half. Lightly oil your counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Gently shape into loose balls and cover with plastic wrap for a short second rise of 10 min.

In your oven, move the rack to the lower third in your oven (in mine, it's the second to the bottom slot) place your baking stone on rack. Preheat oven with stone in, to 475 F degrees for 30 minutes.

Back to the dough. Lightly dust the dough with flour. Roll it out using a rolling pin and starting from the center, working out to the edges, until you have made a 12-14 inch round. If you have a baker's peel (a large spatula designed for lifting and transferring pizza dough) then you can skip the following step.

Lightly flour the top of an inverted half-sheet pan (turn your cookie sheet upside down basically). Transfer your spread out dough round to the floured sheet.

Add the toppings equally for each of the two pizzas in the following order: parmesan cheese, basil, tomatoes (make sure they're seeded & not too wet!). Add mozzarella slices, nestled around the tomatoes. Sprinkle with sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Remove hot pizza stone from oven and transfer the dough with a baker's peel or the cookie sheet method onto the stone. You may need a second set of hands for that part.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until crust is crisp and golden brown. Slice and Serve. Repeat process with second pizza. Enjoy!