Pizza Margherita - batch pizza

Method

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Place a pizza stone on a rack in the lower third of the oven.
• Divide the dough in half, then form each half into a flat round and let it rest on top of your knuckles on both raised fists.
• Use your knuckles to pull out and stretch the round into a thin circle.
• Place the dough circle on your work surface, and press it out as thin as you can with your fingertips.
• Place the dough circle on a flour-sprinkled pizza peel-paddle (or, if you do not have one, on the parchment-covered back of a baking sheet).
• Spread about half of the sauce on the dough, using just enough sauce to dot about half of the pizzas surface, leaving a lip around the edge.
• In the spaces where you havent dotted sauce, lay half of the cheese.
• Drizzle with half of the olive oil.
• Slide the pizza off the pizza peel or the baking sheet with parchment onto the pizza stone.
• Bake the pizza until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the crust is browned and crisp on the bottom, about 10 minutes.
• Remove from oven, and repeat with remaining dough, sauce, cheese, and olive oil.
• A pizza stone, as it is called, is usually a rectangular tablet made of stone or terra-cotta that you place in your oven.
• It helps make good crusty pizza and focaccia because it heats to high temperature and disperses the heat evenly over the bottom of the pizza, cooking evenly and crisp.
• A pizza stone should not be washed, since it is porous; you just scrape and brush off any remaining debris.
• If you do not have a stone, baking the pizza on a baking sheet or in a cast-iron skillet will work, too.