How to make perfect homemade pizza dough

Do you put a hint of sugar or salt in yours? (iStock)

Making your own pizza dough is relatively easy but takes a little time to perfect. (You might not toss and twirl your dough around like chefs on TV during your first pizza-making attempt.)

Ingredients
Basic pizza dough recipes call for yeast, warm water, flour, salt and olive oil. Some recipes call for the addition of sugar or honey, while others say it is not a necessary ingredient.

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According to RecipePizza.com, you can speed up the rising process by placing the dough in a warm place, but you are already taking the time to make the dough from scratch, so let it rise naturally. This should take between one and two hours, so keep an eye on it to determine when it has expanded to the proper size.

You can preheat your oven as the dough rises. To shape the dough ball, place on a lightly floured wooden board and sprinkle a little more flour on top. Press into a flat, pancake-like shape. Lay it on top of one fist and then gently stretch the dough by placing your other fist underneath, pulling and rotating.  You can also use a rolling pin. Decide how thick or thin you want the crust to be, and you are on your way to a delicious pizza pie.

Pizza dough will keep in the refrigerator for several days. Cover the balls with plastic wrap, leaving it room to rise in the fridge. You can also freeze the dough and keep it in the freezer for several months.

Variations
According to RecipePizza.com, the use of high-gluten flour, sometime called bread flour, is key to achieving the proper elasticity in your pizza dough. Eating Well has an easy recipe for whole wheat pizza dough that uses a mix of whole-wheat flour, bread flour and cornmeal.