Homemade Pizza

Tim got home from work and asked who was coming over for dinner.  Um, no one, we were having homemade pizza made with leftover stuff.
That was not a satisfactory answer for Tim.  So I started texting people.  Kevin, Shayna, and Gunnar came over...after they took their baked potatoes out of the oven (lunch tomorrow)!

Because I only had one pizza dough from Trader Joe's (not anticipating guests), I whipped up a batch of dough from The Recipe Critic called Homemade Breadtwists.  Then I could make some breadsticks to go with the pizza.  

Last time I made these breadtwists (Valentine's Day), I followed the recipe exactly.  The breadtwists were good (and there was A TON) of them, but they were just good.  Today, I did a little modification. 

Pizza Dough & Breadsticks

original recipe from Favorite Family Recipes

1 1/2 c. hot water

2 T sugar

1 T yeast

3 1/2-ish c. flour

1 tsp. salt

melted butter

garlic powder

parmesan cheese

garlic salt

Mix hot water, sugar, and yeast together.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  

Stir together flour and salt.  

Add yeast mixture to flour mixture and use dough hook on KitchenAid mixer to combine together until smooth.  

Let rise for 10 minutes. 

Roll out dough on a floured surface half at a time.  

Brush dough with melted butter and sprinkle with garlic powder and a tiny bit of parmesan cheese.  

Fold the dough in half, and slice with a pizza cutter into 1" wide pieces.  

Pick up the pieces and twirl, placing them on an Airbake cookie sheet.  

Let rise again for 10 minutes.  

Bake for 20 minutes at 425℉.  

Immediately brush will more melted butter and sprinkle with garlic salt.  

I did this with only half of the recipe, and the other half I saved to make the second pizza crust.  While we were making the other pizza and the breadsticks were baking, I let the dough sit on some flour and rise.  

Tonight was my first night using my Pampered Chef pizza stone!  I was really excited to use it, but when I called my mom to ask what we always did growing up to get the crust to cook right, she said we never got it right!  So I read the directions for the dough and the pizza stone.  I decided to bake the crust a little bit before putting the pizza toppings on, like we do when we make pizza on the BBQ grill.  

When the breadsticks were out of the oven, and eaten up, I stretched out the second pizza dough on the Airbake cookie sheet and rolled it out (it filled up the whole sheet).  I topped with marinara, mozzarella, salami and pepperoni.  Just for fun, and because I had leftover melted butter, I brushed that onto the crust and sprinkled with garlic salt.  Ta-da Domino's-style garlic bread crust!  Honestly, I have no clue how long I baked it for.  I baked it long enough for the crust and cheese on top to get the yummy brown bubbles, and for the butter to roll off the cookie sheet and make the oven smoke.  

Both pizzas were yummy and successful! Tim and Kevin both thought that though the two pizza doughs were similar, the second (homemade) one was better.  I know the dough on the pizza stone wasn't completely done in the middle, but the guys said it was done on the pizza baked on the Airbake pan.  I guess I still have some pizza stone figuring out to do! 

Oh and we finished the night off with a milkshake, of course using my Ninja Blender.  It was a combination of Peanut Butter ice cream with Peanut Butter Cups and Cookie's N' Cream, with a few Heads & Tails Oreos thrown in with the milk.  YUM!!!