Several months ago I was interested in baking my own bread (by hand, without a bread machine) and one of my lovely readers directed me to something called 5 Minute Artisan Bread. I was intrigued – 5 minutes, no kneading necessary…how much easier can it get? It can’t. This is where it’s at –  a complete game changer. It’s the only recipe I use for making pizza, garlic fingers, brushetta and regular loaves of bread.

It comes out beautifully every single time and to be honest I’m a sloppy measurer and my hired help likes to dump, mix, spill and taste test at every step. So don’t take it too seriously – just have fun with it. I guarantee you that your crust won’t be dry, thick, undercooked, overcooked…it’s always perfect. Here is how I’ve been making my own homemade pizza for the past almost 6 months:

– 3 cups lukewarm water
– 1 1/2 tablespoons pizza yeast
– 1  tablespoons sea salt ( I use 1 tbsp instead of 1.5tbsp in original recipe)
– 6 1/2 cups flour, unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose

Enough for 2 large rectangle cookie sheet pizzas.

1. Grab a BIG mixing bowl. Or big container. Or bucket.

2. Warm the water slightly. It should feel just a little warmer than body temperature. Warm water will rise the dough to the right point for storage in about 2 hours.

3. Add the yeast to the water in your big bowl. Don’t worry about getting it all to dissolve.

4. Mix in the flour and salt – kneading is unnecessary. Add all of the flour at once. Mix with a wooden spoon. Don’t knead, it isn’t necessary. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. It takes a few minutes.

5. Cover with lid (not airtight or it’ll explode off the top) or saran wrap leaving a pea-sized hole in the top to allow for gas to escape. Forget about it and let it rise for 2 hours.

6. Once 2 hours is up, with floured hands reach in and grab a handful of dough about the size of a large grapefruit. This is enough for a large rectangle pizza. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet with a mist of oil and begin stretching it to fill the baking sheet.

7. Once it’s stretched out, leave it to sit for 30-40 minutes and it’ll rise even more. To be honest, you can skip this step if you don’t have time – it’s still great just not AS great as it could be 😉

(At this point, you can make any type of pizza you want or keep reading for my recipe. I make it everytime we have company and receive nothing but compliments.)

8. Add 1/2 jar of sauce for 1 pizza (I use Simply Naturals Pasta sauce or Marinara which makes it tastes like real Italian pizza), sprinkle basil over sauce, layer with Hungarian Salami and mozza then sprinkle garlic powder & Parmesan cheese around just the edge of the dough.

9. Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees, or until crust looks like mine below, then broil for a couple minutes at max temp so your cheese is bubbly and golden.

10. Enjoy.

Original recipe found here. Click through to read about storing your dough and baking bread.

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