Want to know how to make homemade pizza with store bought dough? It’s fun and easy to do. You can put whatever toppings on it that you enjoy. No rules or restrictions about half this and that and paying extra for it. Even put a new twist on something as basic as pepperoni pizza by putting the pepperoni beneath the cheese instead of on top. You might enjoy the flavor and texture better this way.
Equipment
My friend, Roblyn, introduced us to the idea of making our own pizzas. She had a bread maker and often made her own pizza dough. I wondered how we could aspire to such lofty heights. She told us that we needed a pizza stone (or two) and then we could let our imaginations run wild.
I tried making pizza before we got pizza stones. I made my own dough from scratch and baked it on a cookie sheet. That works, but a pizza stone works so much better. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees with the stones on the lowest shelves.
Make sure you have some silicone oven mitts because I burned through all my cloth ones pretty fast making pizzas. Thanks for turning me on to the silicone ones, Moni!
The Dough
Here’s how to simplify: Buy the dough. I put some in the freezer whenever I have an opportunity to buy it. Let your husband (or whomever else in the household is more patient and precise) roll out the dough. I can roll out the dough, but my pizza shape is very avant-garde looking. Never perfectly round. Michael is very precise and although not patient with many other things, he takes his time to roll out the pizza dough. Nice and thin. Perfectly round. Astounding! A pound of dough yields 2 pizzas for us, baked for about 10 minutes or until crust is golden.
If you want to make your own red sauce, read this post next.
Improvise
While traveling, I don’t want to cart around heavy pizza stones and a rolling pin, so I will then improvise with a cookie sheet and empty wine bottle to roll out the dough. If you don’t think you can get the crust as thin as you would like it this way, make a calzone instead. That’s what we did on a lovely trip to Paso Robles. I had forgotten to bring a little extra flour for the surface where I would be rolling out the dough. Thanks, John and Staci! You were wonderful hosts. We appreciate your helping us out with the flour at our home away from home!
For another idea on vacation meals, please read Cheater Sket next.
I FORGOT THIS! oh what fun! dad still calls Mike the pizza maker! that’s his name, not sure if he knows he has a real name..LOL BUT I DO remember ‘I feel the NEED for speed’ master Michael taking his TIME to roll out the dough to perfection..LOL….hilarious…….and i think i get 3 pizzas out of LB dough or 4..i like real thin. it can keep in frig for 2 weeks or as u said freezer divided into amounts for a pizza. easier to buy now since i don’t have my bread machine anymore…:)
I think you said this, trick is to heat stone real hot, take out oven and place dough on top then quickly all your toppings and then back in over…be careful to not burn yourself then after its cooked,,it slides off stone…i used little corn meal under dough on stone…..
that photo above is one beautiful pizza.
so i thought on the boneless skinless chicken blog i get a shout out…..hehe…forgot this one..LOL
I love making pizza at home and the bread maker is so easy!
That’s awesome! Maybe I should get one?
I have tried the premade dough several times, never successful. I roll it out and it shrinks back. It always ended up as playdough for the kids. Do you know what I did wrong?
I don’t think it’s you, but rather the dough. Depending where we purchase it, the springy factor varies. Not being much of a baker, I am no expert on dough and why it behaves this way. Thankfully Michael exercises great patience and manages to subdue even the springiest dough. It just requires more time and effort.
I also might add that our practice is generally to take the dough out of the refrigerator and put it into a bowl to let it rest for an hour before rolling it out. Perhaps letting it come to room temperature helps with manageability?