My Mom’s Amazingly Delicious and Easy Pizza dough

I am part Italian - my grandma's dad was Italian, Tito Begni - which means I grew up eating lots of pasta. And not just the kind of pasta that you buy at the supermarket, but homemade pasta. One of my mom's best recipes is her amanzingly delicious and easy pizza dough - that's how I call it because it is indeed AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS & EASY! I could keep it as a family secret but what's the point... so I might was well share it with you, my beloved friends and bloggers!

Here is the recipe for the dough in small and large batches. The small batch can be used for up to three pizzas if you let the dough rise for at least 6 hours. The large batch can serve for 6 pizzas - once I used it for eight small ones!!! Let it rise, let it rise!

Small batch                  Ingredients                   Large Batch


½ cup                          water                          1 cup

1 large                         egg(s)                          2

1 tbsp                          butter/olive oil              ¼ cup

1 tsp                            salt                              2 tsp

2 cups                         all purpose white flour  4 cups

¼ cup                         sugar                            ½ cup

1-1/2                          skim milk powder         3 tbsp

1 tsp                           quick-rise yeast            2 tsp

Bread machine – put all ingredients in the bread machine bucket in the order above. Make a whole before adding the yeast. Select dough. Approx. 1h 30min. Let dough rest. If dough won’t be used until the next day, put it in the refrigerator. Good for 3 to 4 days.
Hand made – beat all ingredients together until you have a smooth and hard ball of dough. Let it rest for approx. 2 hours.
Tips – use olive oil with Italian seasoning or add grated parmesan cheese to the mix - substitute 1 to 2 cups of white flour for semolina flour or whole wheat flour or rye flour.

You can use the dough as you wish. Not just for pizzas but also calzoni (see picture), smaller treats and even bread. Last week I made a gigantic calzone with pastrami.

Here are the ingredients in the right order: tomato sauce, muzzarella cheese, pastrami, bell peppers (chopped), onion (chopped or sliced), oregano leaves and olive oil.

And here's the result:

I served the calzone with green leaf salad and broccoli soup (all you need here is any kind of soup and then just add the broccoli and let it cook according to the soup package instructions).

All this reminds me of an Italian restaurant back home in Itaipava called Farfarello. La vera pasta asciutta.

Let me know how YOUR recipe turns out!

ps: I love you... mom! And love your recipes too!