Perfect Homemade Pizza Crust

Pizza crust for pizza.

Ingredients

• 1/2 Cup warm water
• 2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 4 Cups bread flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 Cup water, at room temperature
• 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions

Measure the warm water into a 2-Cup liquid measur-ing cup. Sprinkle the yeast over the top.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the bread flour and salt.
Add the room temperature water to the yeast-water mixture.
With the mixer on low speed, pour the yeast-water mixture and olive oil into the bowl. Mix until the in-gredients come together, then knead on low speed until smooth and elastic (about 5 minutes). Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size (1 1/2- 2 hours).

Press down dough to deflate it. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Form each piece of dough into a smooth, round ball. (If freezing the dough, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze at this point). Let the dough relax for at least 10 minutes, but no longer than 30 minutes.

To bake, preheat the oven and pizza stone to 500 de-grees. Sprinkle the pizza stone with corn meal and roll out the dough. Top as desired. Bake until the crust is golden brown, and cheese is bubbling (about 8-12 minutes).