For years, I had been on a quest to find out how to make pizza at home. I tried dozens of different recipes for pizza crust, and none of them were satisfactory. Then I learned how to make pizza crust in the bread machine, with excellent results. Since that discovery I have made hundreds of pizzas using this method. In this guide I share my experiences on what to do and what not to do in order to make a good homemade pizza from scratch.

Tools You Will Need

Breadmaker or Bread Machine with a Dough Setting. Mine is an Oster Breadmaker. I highly recommend this brand, but I think you'd be able to make pizza crust in any bread machine that has a dough setting. In the picture below you can see the settings that are on mine. I use the dough/pasta setting to make the pizza crust. You will not be able to make pizza crust with just one of the regular bread-baking settings.

You will also need:

• Pizza Stone, Pizza Pan, Cookie Sheet or Jelly Roll Pan. The round silver pizza pan shown in the photo above is by Martha Stewart. That's what I use to make most of mine. I have also used a pizza stone, but I prefer the pizza pan because I like being able to wash it with detergent. (See tips below on working with a pizza stone.) I have also used a cookie sheet in the past, but for best results I recommend using a pizza pan or pizza stone.
• Measuring cups for both liquid and dry ingredients
•  Measuring spoons
• A cheese grater if you want to grate your own cheese. (You could purchase grated cheese if you prefer.)
• A rolling pin
• A Rotary Pizza Cutter, or a very sharp knife

Ingredients

Ingredients For The Pizza Crust

The ingredients you will need for making pizza crust are as follows:

• Flour
• Salt
• Water
• Olive Oil or Vegetable Oil
• Yeast
• Some recipes might also call for sugar, but I do not use sugar in mine.

Since the size of the bread pan varies between machines, the exact proportions that you will use of each ingredient will vary depending on your bread machine. Most bread machines come with a recipe book included. I recommend that you follow the recipe book included with your bread machine for best results. The recipe I use for a 2-lb batch of pizza crust which makes 2 pizzas is 4 1/4 cups of flour, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1 3/8 cups of water,  3 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 2 teaspoons of yeast. I add the liquid ingredients to the bread pan first, then add the dry ingredients with the yeast being the last thing that I add. The yeast should not be allowed to come into contact with any of the liquid ingredients before the breadmaker's dough cycle is activated. Then I just plug in the breadmaker, choose the dough setting, press start and let the machine do all the hard work of kneading the dough, letting it rise, kneading again, etc. My breadmaker's dough cycle takes about an hour and a half to complete.

Toppings

While your breadmaker is hard at work creating your pizza dough, you should go ahead and prepare your toppings. Choosing the toppings is the fun part! Here are some combinations that I've used in the past, but you can use your creativity to decide what you'd like to put on your pizza- you can put pretty much whatever you want on it.

Tomato Sauce

Not all of these recipes require tomato sauce, but most of them do. A lot of times I will just use commercially available tomato sauce, but here is a recipe for homemade tomato sauce if you prefer to make it yourself.

• 1 Tablespoon Minced Fresh Garlic
• Olive oil
• 2 Ounces of Chopped Onion
• 2 Ounces of Tomato Paste
• 2 Ounces of Tomato Puree
• 2 Ounces of Crushed Tomatoes
• 6 Ounces of Water
• 1 Teaspoon of Fresh Basil
• 1 Teaspoon of Fresh Oregano
• 1 Teaspoon of Sugar
• Salt
• Pepper

Saute the onions and garlic in a splash of olive oil over low heat until they are nicely softened. Add the rest of the ingredients and then simmer them on low heat without boiling, for around 30 minutes or until sauce is desired consistency. Use and enjoy, or refrigerate for later.

Garden Vegetable Pizza:

• Tomato Sauce (optional: sometimes I leave out the tomato sauce if I am going to use fresh diced tomotoes.)
• Chopped Green Peppers
• Chopped Onion (I like red onions on pizza, but you can use any kind of onion you like)
• Mushrooms
• Olives
• Artichoke Hearts
• Sun Dried Tomatoes or fresh diced tomatoes
• Oregano
• Mozarella cheese plus other cheeses if desired

Meat Lover's Pizza

• Tomato Sauce
• Sausage (fully cooked)
• Pepperoni (fully cooked)
• Ham or Canadian Bacon (fully cooked)
• Oregano
• Mozarella cheese plus other cheeses if desired
• Plus any of the toppings from the garden vegetable pizza above, if desired

Cheese Lover's Pizza:

Use tomato sauce plus oregano, olives, garlic and any combination of the following cheeses:

• Mozarella Cheese, grated
• Parmesan Cheese, grated
• Feta Cheese, crumbled
• Romano Cheese, grated
• Goat cheese, crumbled

Hawaiian Pizza

• Tomato Sauce
• Canadian Bacon or Ham (fully cooked)
• Pineapple

Barbecue Chicken Pizza:

• Barbecue sauce. A little goes a long way- I just spread a very thin layer over the pizza crust for best results. I prefer to avoid the cheap brands because they don't give the best results. I think it's better to splurge on a small bottle of really high end barbecue sauce if you are going to make a barbecue chicken pizza from scratch.
• Skinless Boneless Chicken Breasts (I use about 3 per pizza, which is a lot- I like piling tons of stuff on the pizza!)
• One red onion, chopped
• One small bunch of fresh cilantro
• Mozarella cheese plus other cheeses if desired (I like using both parmesan cheese & mozarella together)

I cut the chicken breast into small squares, chop up the onion and cilantro, and toss them in a pan on the stovetop with a little olive oil, cooking them until the chicken is done. Here is a picture of what these ingredients look like shortly after being added to the pan (they were almost done, but not quite done, at the time I snapped this photo.)

Assembling The Pizza:

When your bread machine is finished making the dough for the pizza crust, you can begin assembling your pizza. Go ahead and pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees before you start this step, so that it will be all ready to go by the time you're finished assembling the pizza.

Here is what the dough will look like when it comes out of the bread machine:

The next step is to grab some flour and spread it over your work surface so that your dough won't stick to it. It will look like a big mess, but trust me you do need to do this. Next, you will roll it out with a rolling pin. You might need to dust your rolling pin with flour too, if the crust sticks to it too much while you are rolling. 

Keep rolling until the pizza crust is the desired size and thickness. If you're using a cookie sheet, you'll probably be better off trying to make a more or less square shape. If you're using a round pizza pan or stone, try for a roughly round shape. It's not the easiest thing to make a perfect circle or square, so don' t beat yourself up if yours isn't perfect on the first try. The "pizza police" will not arrest you if yours doesn't come out looking like a precise circle or square, and your pizza certainly won't taste any better or worse either way.

After you've got the crust rolled out, transfer it to your pan or pizza stone.

Then it's time to add the toppings!

Here are step-by-step pictures of making the barbecue chicken pizza. This photo shows how it looks after I added a thin layer of barbecue sauce:

Next I added the cheese:

And then, the rest of the ingredients:

Bake the pizza in a pre-heated oven, at 400 degrees. Check the pizza after 15 minutes to see how it looks. You might need to cook it as long as 30 minutes. You will know when it's done because the cheese will be melted and will have beautiful browned places, and the crust will be a lovely golden brown. Let it cool a little before using your rotary pizza cutter to cut it.

Eat and enjoy!

The steps for making pizzas with other toppings are pretty much the same as shown for the barbecue chicken pizza above. You just roll out the crust, put it on the pan, spread on your sauce, sprinkle on the toppings and bake.

Do you want to see how this pizza turned out? I have some more pizza photos to show you, but unfortunately I am only able to include 10 photos in this guide. However, I have posted the rest of the photos in my ebay blog. Please click here to visit the art of making pizza post I made in my ebay blog, where I posted the rest of the pizza photos! You can also leave comments or questions about this guide in my blog if you want to. Please be aware that blog comments are not emailed to me so if you leave a comment it might take me awhile to figure it out and respond.

The rest of this guide contains information that will hopefully help you on your quest for making delicious pizzas!

Things That Can Go Wrong While Making Pizza, and How To Avoid Them

Troubleshooting When Things Go Wrong

Tips on Buying Pizza Ingredients

I recommend buying ingredients in bulk when possible- especially yeast. If you own a breadmaker, it is worthwhile to buy a 1 lb or 2 lb package of yeast from a source like Costco, Smart & Final or Sam's Club. You will overspend if you buy the little individual packages of yeast from the grocery store. It is much more economical to buy a large quantity to keep on hand and use as needed.

If you make a lot of pizza like I do, it is also worthwhile to buy flour in bulk. I just use all-purpose flour for my pizza crust, but it is possible to buy bread machine flour in bulk also.

You should also consider buying herbs in bulk. You'll overspend if you buy them in the pretty little jars at the grocery store. (You can always buy one pretty little jar from the grocery store and then keep the jar, use up its contents and then refill it with herbs bought in quantity.) You can buy bulk oregano (and other herbs) on ebay. (I haven't tried it yet, but if I do I will let you know how it goes.)

Tips For Using a Pizza Stone:

• Do not grease a pizza stone with oil. Instead, sprinkle a handfull of dry cornmeal over the pizza stone and spread it evenly over the surface of the pizza stone. This will prevent the pizza from sticking to the pizza stone. The cornmeal is edible, and in fact adds extra texture and enjoyment to the pizza. You might have noticed cornmeal on the bottom of pizza that you order at a restaurant.
• Scrape residue off of the pizza stone immediately after you are finished using it.
• Do not use soap or detergent when washing a pizza stone. Rinse it with water.
• Never put a hot pizza stone in the refrigerator; it could cause the pizza stone to crack. Avoid sudden extreme temperature changes to avoid cracking the pizza stone.

I hope you have enjoyed this guide, and that you will be able to use this info to make lots of delicious pizzas!

Photos and text in this guide are copyright 2006 by Amy Solovay and should not be copied or reproduced without permission. Thanks for your understanding! Please do feel free to print out a copy for your own personal use in the kitchen!