Best Pizza Crust of Your Life

Before this last Valentine's, I had never made pizza crust from scratch before. I looked for a recipe on Pinterest for which I had all of the ingredients (including regular flour. I have a personal policy against recipes that call for weird kinds, like "self-rising" flour or "cake flour." That cake flour is the one that kills me the most. I'm like... You guys, don't you know that you can make cake out of normal flour?? Goodness. And they call themselves professionals.), and I found this one. I made a few little tweaks here and there but mostly stayed true to the recipe (also, I doubled it, and we had enough to make six really big personal pizzas), and holy crap, my mind was BLOWN away by how good this was! (And everyone else thought the same thing, so it's not just my opinion here!)

And so, for you friends who did not celebrate LOVE with me last Thursday, here is the best pizza crust recipe ever! I'll never use another crust recipe as long as I live.

Heart-shaping not required. (Also, heart = courtesy of Camille for Nif)

INGREDIENTS

2 1/4 c. warm water
2 T active dry yeast (I used the kind that comes in a jar and goes in the fridge.)
3 T honey (Steph's on a no-sugar thing right now, so using honey was perfect!)
3 T olive oil
5 c flour (*This is less than the recipe calls for, but it was definitely enough.)
2 t salt
2 t garlic powder
1 t dried basil (it smelled so good!)
a few good shakes of Parmesan cheese (I sort of just eyeballed it 'til I thought it smelled good.)


DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, mix water, yeast, honey, and olive oil. Let sit until foamy (about 10 minutes).
2. Add the flour and seasonings. Stir with a spoon until dough comes together but is still sticky. Form into a ball and smell the good smells (No, but seriously. This dough smells amazing!)
3. On a floured surface (I spread out 1/2 c. flour on my counter), knead the ball of dough for a few minutes and work the 1/2 c. flour into your ball of dough until the dough becomes less sticky. 
4. Grease a bowl and put your ball of dough inside. Cover and place in a warm place to rise. (The recipe says to let it rise for an hour and a half, buuuuut I only let it rise for about 20 minutes, and it turned out just fine.)
5. After the dough has risen, preheat oven to 375 degrees.
6. When the dough is done rising, punch the dough down on your floured surface and roll it out into your desired shape. (I don't have a pizza stone or round pizza pan, so I used rectangle cookie sheets.)
7. After you roll it out, cover the dough and let it sit in a warm place for 10 minutes (I also skipped this step. On accident. Oooops. It turned out fine anyway. Also, at this point, the recipe calls for putting melted butter and garlic on the dough, but I chose not to. You do what you will. It's your crust, after all.)
8. Add sauce, cheese, and toppings.
9. Bake until the crust is a light gold/brown color. (Don't let it burn!)
10. Enjoy! The crust will be thick and fluffy and delicious and warm. Best. Pizza Crust. Ever.