Pizza Dough

Recipe from Chenae Duerden

1 cup warm water + 2 Tbsp yeast
7 cups white flour (or can do half wheat flour, half white flour)
2 1/4 cups hot water
1 Tbsp salt
3 Tbsp sugar

Sprinkle yeast over 1 cup warm water (NOT hot) and let sit. In a large bowl, combine 3 cups of flour with the salt and sugar. Add 2 1/4 cup hot water. Add yeast and water mixture, and then add the rest of the flour. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, then let rise for 30 minutes. Punch down and if desired, let rise again (rising a second time makes it softer, but it is not necessary). Divide dough into 4 (for four medium pizzas) or 2 (for two large pizzas) dough balls.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Let pizza stone (or pizza pan?) warm in oven while preheating. Once dough is rolled out, carefully remove pizza stone from oven and sprinkle with cornmeal. Carefully transfer dough to pizza stone and re-shape. Using a fork, poke holes all over the pizza dough. Drizzle olive oil over dough and sprinkle with garlic salt. Bake (without toppings) for about 5 minutes. Remove from oven and add sauce and toppings then return to oven for another 8-12 minutes until cheese is melted and golden (I usually end up doing13-15 minutes of TOTAL bake time).