Homemade pizza dough recipe

I always wanted to try making pizza at home...but thought pizza dough would be hard to make. I was under the impression that you have to toss the dough up in the air and stuff...which I didn't want to do. I don't want it to land on my head or on the floor. haha

Recently, I stumbled across a youtube video on how to make pizza dough and I was surprised at how easy it is to make it...and of course the dough doesn't need to be tossed. The thing is though, the recipe requires yeast. I never like using yeast. I don't like the taste of it...and no matter what I do, it doesn't go away completely. After watching the video, I decided to search for no yeast pizza dough. I found a whole bunch but they all have mixed reviews...like how it doesn't taste like pizza dough, too crunchy, etc. I thought maybe I'll give the yeast pizza dough a try. The video did get quite a bit of views so it can't be that bad right? Maybe if I follow it precisely, I won't be able to taste the yeast?

...so I gave it a try today. I made calzone with the dough and it turned out very good! I couldn't taste the yeast at all! Very pleased with that!~ The following pizza dough recipe was adapted from this youtube video: original recipe video 

Homemade pizza dough recipe

Ingredients:

5 cups of bread flour

2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup of warm water (90°F- 100°F)

2 tsp active dry yeast (1 pack of 7oz)

1 1/4 cups of water at room temperature 

Instructions:

1. In a small cup, add 1/2 cup of warm water that's around 95°F. Add dry yeast and sugar in the cup and stir lightly. Set aside for about 15-20 minutes for it to foam up. (No need to cover)

2. In a large bowl, add 5 cups of bread flour, olive oil, kosher salt, 1 1/4 cups of water, and the yeast mixture. Mix till the ingredients are mixed together.

3. Lightly flour a flat clean surface. Pour the flour mixture onto the surface and knead the dough till smooth and not sticky. At least 5 minutes.

4. Once the dough is kneaded, round the dough and place it back in the bowl. Moist a clean towel with warm water. Squeeze out the excess water and cover the bowl with the towel. Let it rest for about an hour or until double in size.

5. Remove the towel and poke the dough with your finger. If the hole stays, then the dough is good!

6. Take the dough out and gently push the dough down to release air out. Divide the dough up to whatever size you want. Half of the dough will make a 10" thin crust pizza or 8" regular crust pizza.

7. Round the dough again and cover with clear wrap. Let it rest again for about 30 minutes.

8. Lightly flour the surface and gently stretch out the dough to desired size. Leave the edges thicker for crust or thin for thin crust. Add toppings and bake in oven!

Notes:

There's different types of yeast...such as rapid rise yeast and pizza specific yeast. I used Fleischmann's traditional active dry yeast.