The dough at most neighborhood pizza joints contains a few more ingredients. Fats are added to make the dough more supple,
and sugars are added to feed the yeast and give the bread a touch of sweetness.
I suggest that home bakers begin with a simple, versatile pizza dough recipe like the one below. Once you've got that under
control you can experiment to find something more to your liking.
Realize that you are going to give your pizza a lot more TLC than the employees at most chain pizza places do. If teenagers
working at Dominos for 6 bucks an hour can make a decent pizza, you shouldn't have any problem doing it yourself at home!

5 cups all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
2 teaspoons salt (or 3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt)
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 3/4 to 2 cups room-temperature water

Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or mix in an electric mixer.
After you've combined all of the ingredients, set the dough aside to rest for 5 minutes. Stir again for 3 to 5 minutes, adding
more water or flour if necessary. Generally speaking, you want the dough to be wetter and stickier than your typical bread
dough. It should be dry enough that it holds together and pulls away from the side of the bowl when you mix it, but it doesn't
need to be dry enough to knead by hand.

Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Place each one into an oiled freezer bag. I just squirt a couple of sprays of spray oil into the bag.
You can also brush the outside of the dough with olive oil and then place it into the bag. All that matters is that you be able to
get the dough out of the bag later.

Remember that, as a baker, time is your friend: longer, slower rises at reduced temperature result in better tasting bread. But sometimes you don't have the luxury of time - that is OK; this dough will still work well if only given an hour or so to rise at room temperature. Allowing pizza dough to rise is more about giving the yeast time to bring flavors out of the wheat than it is about leavening. Most of the leavening occurs when you put the active dough into the hot oven, so you don't need to wait until the dough balls double in size.

1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 Tablespoon garlic powder or 4 or 5 cloves of crushed garlic
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar or lemon juice, or a combination of the two
salt and black pepper to taste

Stir everything together. If the tomatoes are too chunky, break them up with your fingers.
Fresh tomatoes or herbs can be substituted for canned tomatoes and dried herbs. The fresh tomatoes don't even need to be
cooked first, since the time in the oven baking is enough to cook them.

I am not experienced enough to do the whole "throw the pizza into the air" thing. My technique for shaping the dough is
extremely simple. I pick up a ball of dough and gentle stretch it into a circle. Once I've got a circle four or five inches across, I
hold it up by the edge and, while rotating it, let the weight of the rest of the dough pull it down to stretch it out.

You can use rolling pin to shape the dough. Doing so results in a more uniform dough with numerous small holes. I personally like the dough to be thinner in the center than the edge and to have a thicker, bready crown full of large irregular holes around the outside. This effect is difficult to achieve with rolling pin, but if that suits your taste then go for it.

Particularly if you are going to add a lot of toppings to the pie: the extra weight pressing down tends to make the dough stick to
the surface you dressed it on. You could also try to sprinkle corn meal or semolina flour on the surface hoping that will be
enough to let you slide the dough without sticking - in my experience, though, it rarely is; I've had many pizzas end up looking
like roadkill because they wouldn't to come off the peel smoothly. I've cut the number of swear words

As I mentioned earlier, most of the rise you get from pizza dough actually happens in the oven. Professional pizza ovens are
much hotter than home ovens. At home you typically want to make pizza at the highest temperature that your oven can safely
handle, like 450 or 500 degrees. Baking on a pizza stone will give your dough a little more pop when it gets in the oven but it is
not necessary to make good pizza.

Place the pizza in the hot oven, close the door, and let it bake for 5 minutes. Check it every minute or two until the cheese is
melted and the dough looks baked. In my oven with the size pizzas I make, I bake them for 7 to 9 minutes.
Pull them out, slice them, and eat!

As I mentioned, there are dozens of dough recipes for the endless different styles of pizza. The most traditional recipe includes
nothing but flour, yeast, salt, and water. Adding a little bit of oil makes the dough more supple so that it can be stretched easier
and is softer to the bite. Adding a touch of sugar gives the yeast something to snack on. And more yeast can be added to
guarantee a rise even for heavily topped pies.
Some general recommendations, based on a couple of the more popular styles of crust:

longer without burning.
Any of the other techniques you've learned for baking bread can be adapted for pizza: sourdough, the sponge method, including
whole wheat flour, even grilling, which I will write about when the weather warms up. So use your imagination!

WOW...your pizza looks if it was baked in a brick oven 8-). . Actually i was planing to buy this book ;-) plus a pizza stone and
peel. i`ve tried a recipe from the ITALIAN BAKER and a recipe from FINE COOKING magazine(using pizza pans with holes)
... I`m searching for the best pizza dough. I can hardly wait to try this delicious recipe.
Did you use a pizza stone and a peel to bake this pizza??

Kaiser rolls are great for picnics, sandwiches, and other summertime meals. The hardest part about making them is shaping them. If you want them to be perfect, order yourself a kaiser roll stamp. Or you can roll out the dough out and knot it the way Peter Reinhart suggests in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Below I'll show you the technique I've found easiest.

The recipe I'm using is a cross between Bernard Clayton's recipe and Peter Reinhart's recipe. Peter's recipe uses a pre-ferment,
the one I've listed below does not. You can adjust this recipe to use a pre-ferment quite easily: simply throw in some old dough
if you want to use a pate fermentee. Or pull out a cup of the flour and 1/2 a cup of the water and 1/4 teaspoon of the yeast, mix
them together, and let them sit out in a covered bowl overnight to create apoolish. Either technique will result in a more
flavorful roll, but if you are going to be making sandwiches slathered in mustard or a sharp cheese, something likely to
overwhelm the flavor of the bread, the extra work is probably not warranted.

3 1/2-4 cups (1 lb.) bread or unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon malt powder
1 tablespoon shortening, butter, or oil
1 egg
1 egg white
1 1/4 cups (10 oz.) water