Kristi's Pizza Dough

Pan Pizza for 12" cast iron pan First cook bacon in the pan. Pour out access grease, but don't clean it. Add a bit of olive oil and make sure it's greased up the sides. If you don't cook bacon, just use olive oil...but it's so good with bacon grease!

Dough: Combine 1 cup APF or bread flour, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp of salt in a bowl. In a liquid measuring cup combine 1/2 cup warm (not hot, err on lukewarm) with 1/4 tsp yeast (I use bread machine). Let bloom for a few minutes, mix, add 1 tbsp of olive oil, mix and immediately pour into the flour. Stir with wooden spoon until combined, dough will be very sticky.

Flour hands and knead the dough right in the bowl. It's a small amount, easy to do with one hand and not dirty your counter. Add just enough flour to make it possible to knead, but keep as wet as possible. After about 10 minutes of kneading, cover dough in olive oil, leave in the same bowl. Let it rise an hour or so on the counter, or put it in the fridge for several hours or days. Let it rise an hour or so after taking it out of the fridge. Then shape it in the pizza pan and let it rise 30 minutes before cooking,

Cooking: Turn your oven to 400F, rack in the middle. Put the pan with dough on largest stove element, turn to medium. Timer 4 minutes - in that time top the pizza with everything but the cheese. This sets the bottom of the crust - too much and it's over done, too little and the pizza is too sloppy to eat by hand. After the 4 minutes, in the oven for 7 minutes. Take out, turn on the broiler, top with cheese, broil 2-3 minutes until cheese starts to brown.

Half a pizza is a serving for one person. It shouldn't be, but it will happen. Don't be ashamed, just steer into the skid.