pam, first off, welcome! if you are using a home electric oven, i have a recipe for two 10-14" pizzas (thickness depending)
if you weigh heavy on flour, use the upper range of the water.
3c bread flour (higher protein, chewier, better quality IMO)
1 1/4c - 1 1/3c water
2t - 2T sugar (depending on your tastes, more sugar will brown more in the crust and speed up yeast activity)
2t salt, kosher preferred
depending on the amount of time you want to make your pizza in,
1t-3t yeast, active dry, cake, or instant.
2-4T oil, 4T will give you a 'tender, moist' crumb compared to 2T, but 2T works just fine. peanut, sunflower, or any flavor of olive oil.
this is my mothers bread recipe, butter switched out for oil. good basic recipe to work with for a novice pizza maker
warm your water if you want, which will also speed up proofing. dissolve your sugar and yeast into it, leave sit until it foams if using active dry.
in a large bowl, add your flour and salt. drizzle your oil over the flour (gives flaky pockets)
add your water/yeast slurry, and scrape from outside of the bowl inwards, rotating as you do. a large flat spatula works great
when it looks ragged, but uniformly mixed, turn your dough out onto a lightly oiled OR a flour dusted counter top.
smush your dough down a bit (like a half-assed knead) to get it smoothed out, divide down if you are making more than one pizza or something like calzones, strombolis, buns, etc
flatten your dough a bit, and stretch one third over the middle, followed by the opposite side. keep flour dusted hands and dough if it's sticking to you
rotate your dough or folds 1/4 turn, and repeat. continue to do this until it is very tight to work with
let sit on counter for 10-30 mins, do another 'stretch and fold' until it's tight again (repeat 2-3 times if you want, or if you need to until it's very tight)
place your dough into a lightly oiled pan with room to grow. lightly oil or non-butter spray the pan where the dough will grow into (sides and bottom) if there isn't oil, along with the surface of the dough
cover with plastic wrap, and either a: counter top rise or b: put it into the fridge if you have the time to spare
when it's doubled in size (reference 1" on the dough surface with something like poppy seeds) it will be 1.25" to 1 1/3" in size. over-risen dough is very slack and loose, and generally hard to work with.
if you are using a pan, press your dough out or stretch it with oil, OR flour, cornmeal, semolina, etc (videos are plentiful on slapping/stretching) or pull it out to a rectangle for a sicilian style. lately, i've been using 1c flour 1/4c wheat flour and 2T cornmeal for a stretch medium
sauce and top as you want. bake at least at 450, home ovens cook slower than a pizza oven. 500-550 is better. find a happy rack in your oven where the pizza won't burn on either side, and place it there until it's your desired level of cooked.
feel free to ask any questions, we've got 10 answers for every question you ask!
