Spread the sauce, toppings, and smiles

If there's one thing you can count on with kids it's that they love to eat what they make themselves. Of course, they don't like to make just anything. So combine a recipe that's always going to be a hit with giving the kids run of the kitchen, and you're bound to see success. Getting kids to eat pizza in the first place isn't terribly hard. Try introducing your crew to rolling out the dough and scattering it with toppings.

Like most breads, pizza dough is made with yeast, but unlike bread dough, pizza requires only one short rise. That means there's no punching down the dough, trying to guess when it has doubled in size, or shaping something complicated. Just put the dough in the oven on the lowest setting and leave it alone for one hour.

While the dough is rising, you can prepare the other ingredients. Decide what kind of toppings you want, mix the sauce, and shred the cheese (or begin with a package of shredded cheese). And it goes without saying, that you can also buy the dough -- you'll need 1 1/2 pounds for this recipe -- and invite the kids into the kitchen to remove the sticky mass from the plastic bag and dust it, and your floor, with flour.

Once the dough has risen, divide it into six pieces. The kids will love pounding the dough flat and throwing it up in the air like cartoon pizza chefs. The youngest ones will need help dressing the dough, but older kids will like the challenge of spreading the sauce in a perfect circle and creating a pizzeria-worthy outer crust.

The rounds bake in just 10 minutes, so your little pizza chefs won't get too antsy. And if they do, just put them to work picking up all the pizza toppings that have spilled on the floor. -- KERI FISHER