Growing up, one of my favorite homemade meals was cast-iron pizza. The recipe was written in my mother’s handwriting and while I honestly have no idea where this recipe came from, to me it is my mom’s pizza crust. Pizza nights were a free-for-all where we could put on our own toppings and the cast iron would make the pizza crust just the right texture of not too chewy yet brown and crispy like a perfect pie crust.
Ingredients
- 2¼ cups flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2¼ teaspoons yeast
- ¾ cup lukewarm water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Preparation
Sift flour and salt together in a mixing bowl. Set aside. Mix yeast into water with sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Allow to sit for 5 minutes. Make a hole in flour mixture. Pour yeast mixture into hole and add olive oil. Knead 10 minutes. Shape into a ball and rub with olive oil. Place in a bowl, cover and allow to double in size (between 20–40 minutes).
Preheat oven or grill to 475°. Spread the pizza crust out in a cast-iron pan, pizza stone, parchment paper or even a cookie sheet and top it with whatever toppings and sauce you desire. Depending on the size of your pizza and doneness you want you will bake from 5 minutes to 15 minutes (the smaller the pizza the less time; the more crispy or almost-burned cheese you want, the longer). Continue to check with a spatula, lifting the crust to ensure you don’t burn the crust … unless that is your pizza choice!
