Pizza Dough & Sauce

From Todd Wilbur's A Treasury of Top Secret Recipes, pages 281-282 and 438-439.

This is a combination of the California Pizza Kitchen crust and the Pizza Hut sauce, and it's delicious!  Make sure you start the night before so the dough has enough time to rise.

Our cheese got a little overcooked, but it was still yummy!

Prep: 20 minutes + rising/resting (4-5 hours and overnight) / Cook: 10-12 minutes
Yield: one 10" pizza


CPK Crust:
1/3 cup + 1 Tbs. warm water (105-115F)
3/4 tsp. yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 cup bread flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. olive oil

Start the day before you plan to serve the pizza.  In a small bowl or measuring cup, dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water.  Let it sit for 5 minutes until the surface of the mixture turns foamy.

Sift together the flour and salt in a medium bowl.  Make a depression in the flour and pour in the olive oil and yeast mixture.  Use a fork to stir the liquid, gradually drawing in more flour as you stir, until all the ingredients are combined.  When you can no longer stir with a fork, use your hands to form dough into a ball.  Knead the dough with the heels of your hands on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes, or until the texture of the dough is smooth.

Form the dough back into a ball, coat it lightly with oil, and place in a clean bowl covered with plastic wrap.  Keep the bowl in a warm place for about 2 hours to allow dough to double in size.  Punch down the dough and put it back into the covered bowl and into your refrigerator overnight.

Take the dough from the refrigerator 1 to 2 hours before you plan to build the pizza so that the dough can warm up to room temperature.

Form the dough into a ball and roll out on a floured surface until very think and 10" in diameter.  Put your pizza crust on a baking sheet or pizza pan, spread with sauce and toppings of your choice, and bake at 500F for 10-12 minutes or until the crust is light brown.

PH Sauce:
1 can tomato sauce (15 oz)
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
Dash onion powder
1/2 tsp. lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Heat the sauce until it starts to bubble, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 30-60 minutes until it reaches the desired thickness.  When sauce has cooled, store it in the refrigerator in a tightly sealed container.

Notes:
- I kneaded my dough on a lightly floured Silpat-type silicone baking mat, and it was awesome!  The dough is somewhat sticky at first and stuck to my hands, but by the end of the 10 minutes, it was a smooth ball, and neither my hands nor the mat had any stray dough on them.
- The second time we made this pizza, we cooked it at 485 or 490 to keep the cheese from scorching, but the crust didn't get quite as crispy.  Just play around with it to find what you like.
- I have used the pizza sauce without allowing it to cool down, so don't worry if that's what you have to do, too!
- The sauce makes enough for a few pizzas, depending on how much sauce you like.