Pizza Hut Original Stuffed Crust Pizza

Crust:

3/4 cup warm water (105-115 degrees)

1 1/2 tsp. yeast

1 Tbsp. sugar

2 1/4 cups bread flour

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil

Sauce:

1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce

1/4 tsp. dried oregano

1/4 tsp. dried basil leaves

1/4 tsp. dried thyme

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. ground pepper

1 bay leaf

Dash onion powder

1/2 tsp. lemon juice

8 (1 oz.) mozzarella string cheese sticks

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella

Toppings of your choice

To make dough; prepare crust one day before baking pizza. Dough must rise in refrigerator overnight to get same quality as commercial dough.

Combine warm water, sugar and yeast in small bowl and stir until yeast and sugar have dissolved.

Let mixture sit about 5 minutes. Foam should begin to build on surface. If it doen’t, the water was too hot or the yeast is dead. Throw it out and start again.

In large bowl, sift together flour and salt. Make a depression in center of flour and pour in yeast mixture. Add oil.

Using a fork, stir liquid in to the center of flour. Slowly draw in more flour, a little at a time, then use your hads to completely combine all ingredients into a ball.

Dust clean, flat surface with flour, and with heel of your hands, knead the dough on surface until it is smooth and consistent; about 10 minutes.

Rub a light coating of oil on the dough. Place in tightly covered container and put in warm place to rise 2 hours or until it has doubled in size.

When doubled, punch dough down and put back into covered container and place in refrigerator overnight.

About one hour before you are ready to use dough, remove it from the refrigerator to warm to room temperature.

Meanwhile, make pizza sauce by combining tomato sauce, spices and lemon juice in small saucepan over medium heat. Heat until it begins to bubble, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, 30-60 minutes, or until desired thickness.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Roll out dough on floured surface measuring 18-inches across. Grease a pizza pan or pizza stone and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Place the pizza on pan and score dough several times with fork to prevent bubbling.

Place a ring of the string cheese sticks, end to end, around the edge of the dough, and inch in from the edge.

Brush outer edge of dough with water and fold dough over and up cheese sticks, pressing it down to seal. This should form a rounded stuffed crust. Lightly brush the top of the folded dough with olive oil all the way around edges.

Spread 1 cup of pizza sauce on crust, or more if you desire, taking care to spread sauce all the way to the folded edge to hide the seam.

Spread toppings over pizza sauce. Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella and bake 12-16 minutes, or until crust begins to turn dark brown and cheese develops dark spots.

Remove from oven and slice pizza 4 times through the center.