Homemade Pizza (with Wheat Crust) - Veggie Lover's !

         Pizza, originated in Italy and of course one of the national food of Italy and Italian people and now it has become more popular and loved by people all over the world. Pizza is nothing but a oven baked flat disc shaped bread topped with tomato sauce ,cheese, vegs and meat also. There are some varieties of pizza like pan pizza, thin crust pizza and stuffed(crust) pizza and a wide range of toppings.
         I am also one of the lover of Pizza , particularly the one from Pizza Hut - only Veggie Lover's. My kids love pizza a lot, that too they like olives and cheese a lot. monthly once we get  pizza for them. I wanted to try Homemade pizza for long time and also i want to make it with wheat crust. After referring so many sites finally i got cleared and found a recipe which suits for me ie. with the ingredients at home. In most of the recipes they said to make the dough in bread machine or processor which i don't have. But my previous bread and bun baking efforts were all fruitful and it gave me a confidence to proceed by kneading itself. I took reference from Here and Here.I tried with whole wheat flour and store bought tomato sauce and the result was awesome, its perfect and my kids loved it. They don't have patience and as usual didn't allow me to take pictures ,5-6 pictures only i took ( DSLR helped me this time to get some good pictures). Now to the recipe...

Ingredients

1. Whole Wheat Flour   1 and 1/4 cup
2. All Purpose Flour    1/4 cup
3. Instant Dry Yeast   1 packet ( i used Fleischmann's Highly Active Rapid rise yeast)
4. Garlic Powder    1/2 tsp
5. Salt    1/2 tsp
6. Sugar    1/2 tsp
7. Olive Oil    2 tbsp  + 1/2 tsp ( i used extra virgin olive oil)
8. Hot water    1/2 cup or more ( hot but bearable)

For Toppings

1. Tomato Sauce  3-4 tbsp or to taste( used Hunt's Tomato Basil Garlic Oregano sauce)
2. Onion   1 small( thickly striped)
3. Tomato   1/4 (diced)
4. Green Bell Pepper   1/2 large( thickly striped)
5. Mushroom  2 whole button mushrooms(sliced)
6. Black olives   3 tbsp
7. Mozzarella cheese      1/4 cup or to taste (shredded)

You can use any veg or meat or paneer as your toppings and also you can cut to your desired shapes n sizes.

Method

• Take a wide bowl, add all the ingredients from "flour to sugar" combine well.

• Make a dent, add oil and hot water and make it to a sticky dough , then on to a light floured surface knead the dough for 6-8 minutes. The dough should not be too sticky or too hard .
• Then, grease the bowl using 1/2 tsp oil and keep the kneaded dough on it and cover it with a damp/wet cloth and keep aside in a warm place until it doubled, say for about 1 hour or less.
• Mean while prepare other things for topping, like cut the vegetables, shred cheese and keep ready.

• Mine took only 30 minutes, after the dough had doubled in its size, lightly punch down the dough and transfer it to a pizza pan or lined baking tray. 
• Preheat oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit.

• Roll it to 12" using a rolling pin,If you want to get thick edges, try rolling the edges , i tried but i couldn't get a perfect round shaped pizza. Prick dough with a fork (I divided the dough in to two and made 9" pizza and one small 6-7" pizza for my kids with more cheese n black olives.)

• Now spread tomato sauce, then add vegetables and lastly sprinkle shredded cheese all around,lightly brush the edges with olive oil (optional)  and bake it for 15- 20 minutes or until bottom turns light golden brown and cheese melted.

Notes:
Instead of whole wheat flour you can try with All Purpose flour alone and use equal amt of whole wheat flour and all purpose flour.
I used whole wheat atta - Annapurna Brand
Hot water should not reach boiling point just hot enough.
If you don't have Instant yeast and used active dry yeast means, increase the rising time, 1-2 hours or till it  doubled.
Instead of tomato sauce you can also use pizza/pasta sauce. But this tomato sauce itself gives the real flavor n taste.the pizza on the whole ,it was like store bought...we just loved it...too yum!!