Bread Machine Pizza Dough

We have a Zojirushi bread machine and use this recipe regularly to make pizza, calzones, and perogies. If you have never made pizza with your own dough, be prepared for a real treat. You won't ever want to go back to those pre-fab pizza crust packages you can buy in the grocery store.

Ingredients

• 1 1/8 cups water
• 1 tbsp Olive oil
• 1 tbsp Sugar
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 tsp Crushed red pepper (optional)
• 1 cup Whole wheat flour
• 2 cups Bread flour
• 1 1/4 tsp Yeast

Instructions

1. Put all of the ingredients into the bread machine in the order listed, and set the machine to create dough.
2. When the machine finishes, roll out the dough on a floured cutting board.
3. Shape the dough into the desired form (pizza, calzone, etc.).
4. Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and let rise for 15 minutes.
5. Prepare your favorite toppings while the dough rises.
6. Add the toppings and bake 30 minutes at 400 degrees (F).

Tips

• Pepperoni Pizza: Spread about a cup of Muir Glen pizza sauce (about half the can) on the dough. Add fresh tomato slices. Add Eves vegan pepperoni. Add chopped green and red bell pepper.
• Hawaiian Pizza: Spread about a cup of Pace Picante sauce on the dough. Add Eves vegan canadian bacon, sliced into triangles. Add chopped pineapple chunks and chopped tomato.
• The crushed red pepper really adds zing to the pizza crust. You'd be surprised at how mild it is by the time the dough is done, so unless you are really sensitive to hot foods, give it a try at least once.
• We were first exposed to the joys of flavored crusts at a place called Hungry Howie's in Encinitas, California. In the spirit of the pizza we used to enjoy there, we sometimes add other spices to the crust as well. Rosemary, thyme, or any Italian spice blend works great for this purpose.
• The total time to prepare this meal varies by bread machine. Our bread machine takes two hours to make dough, so it is almost three hours from start to a finished pizza. The nice thing is that you only spend about 20 minutes of hands-on time preparing the dough and the ingredients. The rest of the time you can spend on other activities around the house.
• A word about cheese: Finding good vegan cheese to put on pizza has been a challenge. Most vegetarian cheeses that claim to melt like real cheese do so because they include casein, which is a non-vegan ingredient. The best option we've found so far are the Vegan Gourmet Cheese Alternatives from the Follow Your Heart folks. This is the same company that makes Vegenaise, which is by far the best vegan mayo we've tried. Unfortunately, our local grocery store does not carry their cheese products (and yes, we've asked). However, you can order the products online at the Follow Your Heart Web site.

Serves: 4
Preparation time: 50 minutes, including the baking time but not bread machine time.