Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

I know like me there are many pizza lovers out there!!My little family and I went to eat at a pizza place a few months back that makes chicago style deep dish pizzas and they were awesome. So me being the food crazy person that I am started on the hunt for a good homemade recipe for it. I came a cross one that looked good so we tried it out a few weeks back and let me just tell you it was AMAZING!!! My husband and kids loved it!! If you like pizza as much as I do you must give this a try. It takes a little bit of time but is so worth the time. Believe me!!

Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza
Dough:
3 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 1/4 tsp instant or rapid rise yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water
3 T. butter, melted-plus 4T. softened
1 tsp olive oil-plus 4T

Mix the flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, and yeast in a bowl of stand mixer fitted with the dough hook on low speed until incorporated. Add water and melted butter and mix on low speed until fully combined(1-2 mins.)scraping the sides and bottom of bowl occasionally. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough is glossy and smooth and pulls away from sides of bowl, 4-5 minutes.(Dough will only pull away from sides of bowl while mixer is on. When mixer is off dough will fall back to sides) Using fingers, coat a large bowl with 1 tsp olive oil, rubbing excess oil from fingers onto blade of rubber spatula. Using oiled spatula, transfer the dough to oiled bowl, turning once to coat dough with oil. Cover tightly and let rise at room temp. until nearly doubled in volume,45-60 minutes. To laminate the dough. Using a rubber spatula turn dough out onto a dry work surface and roll into a 15 inch by 12 inch rectangle. Using offset spatula spread softened butter over the surface of the dough leaving 1/2 inch border along edges. Starting at the short end, roll dough into a tight cylinder. With seam side down flatten cylinder into 18inch by 4 inch rectangle. Cut the rectangle in thirds crosswise. Working with 1 third, fold into thirds like a business letter;pinch seams together to form a ball. Repeat with remaining thirds. Return balls to oiled bowl;cover tightly, and let rise in refrigerator until nearly doubled in volume, 40-50 minutes.
Adjust oven rack to lower position and preheat oven to 425 degrees. Coat 3-9 inch round cake pans with 2 tablespoons olive oil EACH!! Transfer 1 dough ball to a dry work surface and roll into a 13 inch disk about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer dough to pan and lightly press dough into pan, working into corners and 1 inch up the sides of pan. Repeat with remaining dough. To assemble pizza, layer a tiny bit of sauce in bottom of crust(because chicago style has the sauce on top)sprinkle with 2 cups mozzarella cheese. Spread desired toppings over cheese such as sausage, pepperoni, ham, peppers, onion, olives,etc.Spread pizza sauce over top of toppings and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake until crust is golden brown, 20-30 minutes. Remove pizza from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Enjoy!!!

Note: Original recipe says the dough only makes two pizzas but we found that there was too much dough for our first pizza so we made 3 instead and we like that better(having a little bit thinner crust)

Note:do not skip any of the steps and use the butter where it says to use the butter no substitutes or it won't be as good!!

Note: I doubled the dough recipe so that we had plenty of leftovers plus 2 or 3-9 inch cake pans is not a lot of pizza especially with a husband with a big appetite!!

Pizza Sauce:
2 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 onion
2 T. garlic, minced
2 28 oz(each) cans crushed tomatoes
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt

Heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat, add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is translucent. Add all the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 25-30 minutes(the longer it simmers the better the flavor)