Easier Pizza Crust

I always have a booger of a time rolling out the pizza dough, patting, patting, patting, trying to get it flat enough and big enough for the pan.

At our second hotel stop on the drive to Texas last week, we turned on the TV to find it already set to Food Network. Ah, perfect! I love Food Network! One of the segments was a pizza-making race for Dominoes pizza-makers. You know what they do? They don't toss & spin the dough into circles. (I usually end up with holes in the middle when I do that, even when I start with a thicker middle. Or I end up with pizza dough on the floor. But you would never make that mistake, would you?) These speedy-delivery pizza-makers do not painstakingly pat the dough onto cookie sheets or pizza pans.

They roll it on the counter. With lots and lots and LOTS of cornmeal.

See, now, every time I try to roll dough on the counter, it sticks. Every time. Pizza crust. Cinnamon rolls. Anything. But what I saw on Food Network the other night was a lavish and messy display of cornmeal.

So when Andrew was making pizza crusts on Monday (32 personal-sized pizza crusts for the company he'd invited for Tuesday!) we tried the cornmeal and rolling pin. I don't know how much cornmeal we used, but the huge amount was no waste. It certainly saved a LOT of time and frustration.