One of the great things about homemade pizza, besides its very frugal cost, is that you can control what goes into it and on it. I tend to make mine a bit lighter on the cheese, which cuts the calories and fat. We typically make pepperoni and cheese, although frequently we'll break out to broccoli (if we have fresh on hand) or tomato (with slices of fresh). I've even tried my hand at a version of chicken BBQ.

And let's face it, although pizza toppings would make even a piece of cardboard palatable, there is something about a great crust that really improves the total quality of your pizza. For the longest time I just used the pizza crust recipe that came in my breadmaker cookbook.

It was a decent recipe-tasted fine and all -- but wasn't anything special. I always had the feeling that although I was saving money and being much, much healthier than ordering out pizza (or even buying frozen pizza) I was somehow sacrificing on taste. But now this particular recipe has fixed all that!

Yes, it has more ingredients than the other recipe, so it's a tiny bit more of a hassle to put together. The taste however makes it worth it. I was in a head cold induced stupor the other day and mistakenly made my old recipe on pizza night-everyone noticed the difference and was disappointed. So without further ado, here is the king of all pizza crust recipes. At least as far as I'm concerned. 

Pizza Hut Style Pizza Dough

1 1/3 cups water 2 tsp sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp cornmeal

3 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

1 1/2 tsp yeast

Add ingredients to bread machine, according to manufacturer's settings, and run dough setting. After the machine beeps, roll out the dough. You can roll the dough into two 9x13" pizzas, two medium pizzas or a large pizza and an order of breadsticks (as instructed above). Parbake the crust with a drizzle of olive oil on it at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove the crust and add sauce and toppings. If making breadsticks, add your breadsticks at this time. Place into the oven for another ten to fifteen minutes or until golden and bubbly. Enjoy!