Pizza Part I: The Dough

Light Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (from Artisan in Five Minutes a Day recipe book)

3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 T yeast
1 1/2 T salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
5 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Combine the water, yeast, & salt in a 5 quart bowl with a non airtight lid. Mix in the remaining flour with a spoon, make sure it is well combined and there are no lumps of flour.
Cover and let rest at room temperature for about 2 hours, then you may store it in the fridge for 2 weeks. Dough is easier to work with when it is cold...it is less sticky.

Note: This will make about 3-4 14" round pizza's (depending on how thick you want your crust), so please feel free to cut the recipe in half or store it in the fridge for some bread the next day. Don't forget, you can store this dough up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

When ready to make pizza, remove dough from fridge. (We obviously didn't use a big enough container.)

Sprinkle flour over the surface of the dough in the container as well as your hands (it is very wet and sticky) Break off a large grapefruit size portion with a knife.Form the dough into a nice ball by pulling the surface of the dough with your thumbs around to the bottom turning the dough ball as you go. Add more flour to your hands if it is still too sticky.

Now you are ready to role out the pizza dough. I found this dough to be very resilient, so you may need to let the dough rest for 10 minutes or so to let it relax, then try to role it out again. Or you can try slamming the dough on the counter, sometimes that works, just give it a good shock!

You can use a normal rolling pin for this.
Sometimes it is easier to take it in your hands and stretch it, just don't do it too much that you make holes.
Then throw it in the air a few times just for fun, because you can!

Put it in your pizza pan and and your ready for the sauce.Part II is coming soon!