MARGHERITA PIZZA

Adapted from Scott Riebling

You will need a pizza stone and a wooden pizza peel.

Makes one 12-inch pizza

Dough for one 12-inch round
½ cup tomato sauce
4 ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced or shredded
6 leaves fresh basil, shredded

Two hours before you plan to make your pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator.

An hour before, set your oven as high as it will go, 500° or 550°, with the pizza stone on the floor of the oven if gas and on the bottom rack if electric.

Take a ball of dough and flatten it out on a floured surface to a roughly 8-inch round. Drape the round over one closed fist and with the other hand, pull the edges out, rotating the round, until you have a roughly 12-inch circle. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfectly round. Place the dough on a pizza peel. Ladle tomato sauce into the center of the dough and spread it out with the back of a wooden spoon, leaving a roughly 1- inch rim. The sauce should not be too thick. Place the mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce. Scatter shredded basil. Slide the pizza onto the pizza stone. Bake for 5 to 8 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the cheese bubbles.

Slide the pizza out using the pizza peel and rest for about a minute on a cooling rack before transferring to a flat surface to slice.