Pizza Party

Tonight I hosted my first pizza party. I believe it was a success. I tried to made pizza a few months ago... but to my dismay the dough didn't rise and it was nothing like I had expected it to be. I went out and bought a pizza stone and a paddle and I was totally going to be awesome at making pizza... or so I thought. Well, I didn't give up and last minute this afternoon I decided to throw a pizza party. I used a fail-proof dough recipe (In my head I was thinking, this will be embarrassing if a fail-proof recipe doesn't turn out.) I made 4 batches of pizza dough and they all turned out. The first batch I cut in half and used to make cheesy bread sticks for an appetizer while everyone was making their pizzas. Everything tasted great. 
The fail-proof recipe came from Lauren
Cheesy breadstick recipe:

1/2 recipe of fail-proof dough (recipe below)
2 tablespoons softened butter
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper

Directions:
Directions:
Preheat oven to 500 degrees with pizza stone inside.
Mix butter and garlic in a small bowl and set aside.
Spread the butter and garlic mixture over dough and top with parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. Top with a light sprinkling of salt and pepper, if desired.

Sara and Andy's pizza. Can you tell it's supposed to look like a skull?

 

Christy and Brett's pizza. I think the Canadian bacon and pineapple was a hit.

 

John and Crystal's pizza. They made a hidden pepperoni pizza. This was taken before it was cooked and before they topped it with cheese.

 

The Fail-proof dough recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (one .25 oz packet)
1 tablespoon honey {or sugar}
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive or canola oil
3 cups bread flour {give or take 1/2 cup…depending on the heat & humidity}

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, stir yeast and honey into warm water. Sit for 5-10 minutes or until bubbles form and mixture starts to foam. This tells you that the yeast is alive and kicking. Pour in salt, oil and half the flour and mix.

Once that flour is incorporated, start adding flour in bit by bit until you get the pizza dough to the consistency you want: slightly tacky, but when you touch it it doesn’t stick to your hands. Then knead the dough for 6 minutes. (After kneading 4 pizza doughs my arms were tired.) The dough will become a little more firm by the time you reach the 6 minute mark. It should progressively get harder to knead.

Lightly grease the bowl & the dough so it doesn’t dry out, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise 1-2 hours. That’s it!