Pizza Party!

If you don't know by now, I'm on an online message board known as What's Cooking. I love the board because its a great place to find recipes. The same recipes circulate around and around the board and that's how you know they're good. The best end up on our own WC blog - Now that's what's cooking. And so last night when I wanted to make pizza, I knew exactly where to turn to find my crust recipe. This recipe comes from Allrecipes.com, a site I tend to avoid because there are too many recipes and I don't trust them. However, once they make it onto the WC blog,they become so much more trustworthy. This crust recipe was excellent however, if you're going to use it for a buffalo chicken pizza like I did you might want to bake the crust a little first before topping it. Frank's buffalo chicken sauce isn't very thick, so it tends to soak into the dough and then the dough never gets that great pizza dough consistency.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza made with Jay's Signature Pizza Crust (from Allrecipes)

1/2 packet active dry yeast
1/4 teaspoon brown sugar
3/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F / 45 degrees C)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 grilled chicken breast, chopped
Franks hot sauce
1/2 red onion sliced
1 celery stalk, sliced thinly
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit 10 minutes.

2. Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 1 1/4 cups of the flour.

3. Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until doubled in size; approximately 1 hour. Punch down the dough and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax a little before rolling out.

4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise 15-20 minutes before topping and baking it.



5. Top pizza with Frank's Hot Sauce, then veggies and chicken, then cheese.

5. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15-20 minutes.