Pizza Tips and Pizza Buns

I love pizza.  We typically have pizza on Fridays.  I like to make my own and continue to be on a quest to make a great pizza.  I like this recipe, but you need to make it the day before.  It is good though.  I also shared about our grilled pizza.  Very good, but with a thick crust.  I tried another new recipe (pictured below with the first cut) and we really liked it.  It was really fast and easy, too.  Unfortunately, I made the pizza too large (16", but still had leftover dough) and had to bake it in my pizza pan instead of on my pizza stone, but it has great potential.  Doesn't it look good?

To make a good pizza at home, we feel a few things are needed.

1. homemade crust  (check links above if you don't have one)

2. homemade pizza sauce (Linked to my easy sauce.  It makes enough for several pizzas.  I freeze the extras.)  Also, I recommend spreading the sauce thinly.

3. mozzarella cheese purchased in a block and shredded by you.  Purchased shredded cheese just doesn't work on pizza.

4. pizza stone -This is somewhat optional, but makes a big difference.  You also need to preheat your oven, with the stone inside it, for about 45 minutes.  It's not ideal in the summer, but works great the rest of the year.   

5. hot oven-You want your oven as hot as possible.  I've also heard that using the lowest part of the oven is good.  

Since the Mennonite Girls Can Cook's pizza crust recipe was so good, I decided to try their pizza buns too.  They were good!  I used the French bread recipe mentioned in the post instead of my own.  (Of course you could even buy a can of French bread dough.) 

 Sorry for the orange picture.  (Silly oven light.)

  Anyway, these pizza rolls were really good, though next time I will sprinkle additional cheese on top for the last five minutes of baking.  Too much of the cheese oozed out during the baking process, as seen on the parchment paper below.  Anyway, if you are looking for a good pizza alternative, these are pizza-but perfect for on the go with no mess...and loved by children!

What pizza tip do you have for me?