Pizza Dough

I mixed a tablespoon of sugar with a packet of active dry yeast in a large bowl, then added one cup of warm water. Let the yeast proof for 5 minutes in a warm place, then added about a tablespoon of olive oil and some salt (I should've added more). Then I started adding flour until it was still a very-slightly sticky dough (about 2 1/2 cups). I turned it out on a floured pastry mat, sprinkled it with more flour, and started kneading (my favorite part), adding flour if it got sticky, for about 5 minutes, until it had that nice, stretchy pizza-dough quality. Made it into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl, turning the dough to get it coated with the oil. Covered that with a dishtowl and put it on top of the pilot light on my oven to let it rise for about an hour, until it doubled in size.

After an hour I punched it down and split it into two balls. One I wrapped in plastic and put in the freezer; the other I pulled into a pizza shape and put on a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet. (Shaping the pizza was a bit of a disaster: I meant to roll it out on my pastry mat, but the mat had little bits of dried-out dough on it from the first kneading and I didn't want those stuck to the dough. So I tried pulling the pizza into shape, creating a very uneven crust with a couple of holes. But, as I mentioned before, pizza dough is forgiving. I pinched the holes closed and moved on. Ended up with a rim a little bigger than I would've liked, but not bad, considering. It was like Beau Jo's crust: They put honey on the table so you can have a little on your giant crust after the rest of your slice is eaten.) Then I covered it and let it rise for about half an hour while I preheated the oven to 500 degrees.

I baked the crust for about 8 minutes on the baking sheet on the oven floor, and it developed a nice, crispy crust with a few of those burnt patches that I happend to like on brick-oven pizzas. (I thought I needed a pizza stone to do this; guess not.) Then I used bottled sauce (sorry!) and rounds of fresh mozzarella and put it back in the oven for about 5 minutes. Once I took it out I grated some Parmesan over the top and added chiffonaded basil.

The texture of the crust was good: crispy and chewy. It could've used more flavor, maybe more salt or some whole-wheat flour. I should've made my own sauce, but just wasn't up for it.

I find the doughmaking so relaxing, and yesterday was such a beautiful day, with the breeze blowing spring in through the open windows. And now I have more dough in the freezer. Maybe calzones?