Looks to me like there's not enough flour for all the liquid....and the addition of wheat gluten would also help.
Did you bake it in the machine or in the oven.
Where did you get the recipe?
Linda C

How much more flour should I try adding to this recipe? I got the original recipe off breadnet.net Oh, and the original recipe also called for an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce and a 6 oz can of tomato paste instead of the 14 oz pizza sauce I substituted---which would make my recipe a little more watery, too, I suppose. I actually changed it up quite a bit---used the pizza sauce so didn't need to add the rosemary, thyme, onion powder and oregano the original recipe called for. I baked it in the bread machine. Thanks for your advice---I'm anxious to try it...

I agree with Linda about there not being enough flour. My experience has been about 1 c liquid to 3 c flour. When using a bread machine, keep an eye on the bread while it's mixing and kneading and if it doesn't form a ball after all the flour is incorporated, it's too liquidy. You need to add flour slowly, a tablespoon or so at a time.

Tracey

1. If you are using bread flour, you don't need any additional gluten. There's more than enough gluten in bread flour - even all-purpose flour - to make bread without additional gluten. Too much gluten makes the bread tough.

2. I think you've killed the yeast with all the salty ingredients. Salt regulates yeast and too much can kill the yeast. Since you added MORE cheese, and if you added the cheese and pepperoni early in the mixing while the yeast needs to be doing it's thing, it seems like an awful lot of salty ingredients. Including all that pizza sauce as well as the garlic salt which also contribute enormous amounts of salt. Save the cheese and the pepperoni for adding late in the kneading at the add-in beep.

3. You want the dough ball to be formed into a nice soft ball. As the others contributed, it sounds like it needs more flour. With all the liquid and only 3 cups of flour, it sounds like it was soupy instead of a soft, but well-formed, dough ball.

Personally, I think this recipe looks like a failure waiting to happen, as it is written.

-Grainlady

Yup---good advice, Tracey. I think you girls are right on the money here. I did peek in on it while it was mixing and it was kinda sticky-looking and not smooth and forming a ball like it should. Thank you---I'm going to try it again and add flour spoonful by spoonful. I'll let you know the results. I'm planning to enter this in a county fair contest---I took 2nd place last year with a Reuben Sandwich Bread Machine Bread.

Thanks for taking the time to give such thorough advice, Grainlady. Too much salt---so should I leave out the 1 tsp garlic salt and use garlic powder or fresh garlic instead??? I did use the fruit/nut cycle and add frozen cheese and pepperoni at the beep, as per the machine manufacturer's instructions. It actually turned out quite well and very yummy (IMHO, of course!!), except for the flat top. I'll try it again with more flour---I really think that will probably do it. It's very similar to the recipe I won with at the fair last year, except I used swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and pastrami (no tomato sauce though). I'm going for 1st place this year!!! Thanks for your help everyone!