Breadstick Pizza Dough!

I try to steer away from posting every day meals like gourmet burgers or sammies unless they are particularly good or have some kind of spin on them.  Pizza is much in that category as there are 500,000 recipes out there for any kind of pizza you can imagine.  However, this is an exception.  This recipe is actually a breadstick recipe shared by my friend Siggy Spice.  The breadsticks alone are of such addictive quality you could easily just eat them plain...they are truly THAT good and flavorful.  I made these breadsticks last week and my husband, while shoveling in his 8th breadstick says "I bet this would make a good pizza."  And the light bulb went off in my head that I knew I was going to make pizza dough from this recipe one way, shape or form.

Let me tell you about this recipe first though.  It comes together really super quick using rapid rise yeast.  Yes, I know...you hate yeast.  We all have our woes regarding yeast but this is a really good exception.  The rise is only 30 minutes.  For fresh, hot bread that's chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside....that 30 minutes is nothing.  Shred your cheese, chop your toppings...do whatever you want for 30 minutes then come back to it.  No hot towels, no oily bowl either.  Roll it out, plop and stretch it on your pan and walk away for 30 minutes.  Its really just that simple.  My old recipe for pizza dough required overnight rising in the fridge so this - yeah, this is now my go to pizza crust hands down.

You can see Siggy's original recipe here on her blog.  Try making those too!  *DELICIOUS* in every sense of the word.  But try my variation as a pizza dough...sure to please!   The only real change I made was I instead of an herb blend and garlic salt, I used McCormick's Garlic Bread Sprinkle which is a blend of romano, herbs, salt, garlic and all sorts of goodies.  After the pan rise, I brushed olive oil on the dough and sprinkled heavily with the garlic bread sprinkle.  Then I added tomato sauce, then the toppings of hand cut pepperoni and fresh mozzarella/provolone and a heavy sprinkle of Parm-Reg cheese.

The crust was perfectly medium thick (think Pizza Hut hand tossed as a measure of thickness), chewy inside, crispy on the bottom and edges.  See my picture below to see the edges and the inside of the crust.  Sooo good!  Hope you try it out!  (forgive my double cheese, oily pizza...that's how we like it!  Drippy, gooey and super cheesy lightly browned on top!)

Breadstick Pizza Dough

Adapted from Siggy Spice's Recipe

• 1-½ cups warm water
• 1 TBSP instant (rapid rise) yeast from a jar
• 2 TBSP sugar
• 3-½ cups all purpose flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 2-4 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• McCormick's Garlic Bread Sprinkle

Mix together water, yeast, sugar, flour, and salt in a large bowl or electric mixer and knead for three minutes. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Spread 1-2 TBSP olive oil (just enough to coat) onto the bottom of a 16"x14" cookie sheet.  Roll out the breadstick dough about 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick and large enough to fit onto baking sheet.  Place whole sheet of dough on baking sheet, stretching and pressing into shape then brush 1-2 TBSP olive oil over top of dough making sure it is all lightly covered.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes.

Remove plastic wrap, sprinkle garlic salt and herbs of choice over top of olive oil.  Add tomato/pizza sauce and toppings.  Place in preheated oven and allow to bake for 25-30 minutes until cheesy is bubbly and browned slightly.