Whole-Wheat Pizza Crust

It's been several months now since I got a breadmaker, and I can safely say it's one of the most frequently used kitchen appliances in our house. Apart from the numerous wonderful kinds of bread, I mostly use it to make pizza dough. I've always enjoyed home-made pizza, but hated that horrible store-bought frozen crust. Hubby and I are so smitten with the crust from our breadmaker that we have dubbed Sunday our pizza day. This Sunday was the first time I tried adding some whole-wheat flour to the crust, and it turned out super tasty!
I used half whole-wheat and half all-purpose flour. It's very difficult to give precise quantities of water and flour for this kind of dough. It needs to be elastic and mustn't feel too sticky, so, if necessary, feel free to add a few tablespoons of either water or flour. The instructions below are for making the dough by hand. If you have a breadmaker, it probably has a dough program, and all you need to do is pop the ingredients in and press a few buttons :)


Ingredients

300 ml/10 oz warm water
225 g/ 0.5 lb all-purpose flour
225 g/ 0.5 lb whole-wheat flour
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

Yield: two 12-inch pizzas

In a large bowl dissolve the sugar and salt in the water, add the yeast and leave it to rise for 10 to 15 minutes. Add the oil and most of the flour (save a cup for later) and stir until combined. Now start kneading the dough by hand, gradually adding the rest of the flour. The dough should be soft, but mustn't stick to the sides of the bowl. Knead for 10 minutes, occasionally dusting with flour, until the dough is springy and smooth but still reasonably soft. Take the dough out to dust the bowl with flour or spray it with olive oil, return it to the bowl, cover with aluminum foil or plastic wrap, and leave for 45 minutes at room temperature. The dough will double or triple in size. Split into two equal parts, and roll out on a floured surface. Place the dough on a baking sheet, then add the toppings (it's much easier to transfer the pizza without toppings). I prefer not to preheat the oven, as the crust will continue to rise while the temperature slowly increases. Also, if you like a slightly thicker crust, it might be a good idea to bake it for 5 minutes just with the sauce, then take it out, add the rest of the toppings and return to the oven. The usual baking time is around 15 minutes. When the crust edges start turning golden, the pizza is done!