Simple Pizza

I was in the mood for something simple tonight, so I decided to make a quick pizza. After a quick scan of Epicurious to get a recipe for the dough, I settled on a recipe from Bon Appetit, March 2007. I ended up doubling the recipe, figuring I'd be making another pizza soon enough, plus I remembered a hint from Dorie that larger batches of doughs using yeast tend to work out better.

Recipe:
1 1/2 c. warm water
4 1/2 t. active dry yeast
4 c. flour
2 t. sugar
1 1/2 t. salt
3 T. olive oil

Mix the yeast and warm water together, then let stand for 5 minutes or until creamy. With the dough hook on a stand mixer, add sugar and salt, then flour one cup at a time. After it has all come together, knead 5 minutes. If dough is still sticky, add small amounts of flour. Pour olive oil into a bowl, spread along the sides, and then add the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to double in volume (approximately 1 hour). Punch down, then cut in half and form the pizza, working from the middle out (mine ended up being approximately 14 inches in diameter, but you could make yours as thin or thick as you'd like).

For toppings, I went with tomato, onion, fresh basil leaves, hot Italian sausage, prosciutto, and goat cheese.

I layered with the meats on the bottom, covered with onion and tomato, followed by basil, and topped with the goat cheese.

I forgot to assemble on top of parchment paper (I don't have a peel), so when I finally tried to move the pizza it got sort of lopsided and sloppy. At least I'll know better for next time. Some of the edges of the parchment paper got burnt, so I'd suggest trimming close to the pizza if possible. The oven was preheated to 500ºF, then the pizza was slid onto the pizza stone (which had been in throughout the preheating) and baked for 9 minutes before I pulled it out. All in all, everything came out well, and I'm sure I'll be making this again - especially since I have the extra dough.