As far as pizza dough, I’ve been having good luck with Adam Ragusea’s NY Style pizza dough (youtube). He talks about letting the dough rise overnight in the fridge. I’ve done it both ways (a couple hours warm rise and an overnight rise) and really don’t notice any difference.
My biggest challenge was my oven. It only gets to 525(F) and heats unevenly. I figured out which rack to use & when to turn it. I also watch it like a hawk.
My cheese is a low moisture, part skim mozzarella. We did find some whole milk, low moisture mozzarella in stick form (string cheese) and tried it. We really didn’t notice a big difference, so I went back to part skim, as it was much cheaper.
My girlfriend is asking for a mushroom pizza this week. I hadn’t planned on making pizza this week, but I may change my weekly dinner menu.
I usually use leftover homemade marinara as pizza sauce but I do like Cento pizza sauce in a pinch. I tried the pricier Rao’s once and didn’t really notice any great improvement.
Of the dough, the sauce, or both? For pizza crust to have a real wow flavor factor, IMO you really need to do a long ferment. Overnight minimum, 2-3 days preferable. No matter what the hydration or other ingredients, the ferment is what builds flavor.
What are you using for sauce? Different styles of crust will work better/worse with different types of sauce, but for a most-purpose starting point I typically use whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand, cooked briefly with a bit of tomato paste (for a touch of sweetness and body), salt, garlic, a little basil and red pepper flakes. I have never found a canned or jarred pizza sauce that I like - canned sauces tend to have a too-cooked flavor profile that is too dull to stand up to pizza’s other elements.
First one was overnight, and it really gassed up… but it still didn’t taste like much.
Same jarred sauce (Mezzetta) I use on my sourdough English muffin pizzas, which are pretty tasty BTW. They are however par-toasted, and toppings run all the way to the perimeter.
I use Cento S.M. for most everything I need tomato products for (even though it has doubled in price over the last few years), but had a jar of the Mezz I wanted to use up. Considering how good it is on the EM pizzas, I was a bit dumbfounded the flavor was just quashed by the pizza dough.
I am a little envious of some who have posted photos here (especially @vinouspleasure 's). Dunno how they taste but some look really good.
I agree, @vinouspleasure makes a fine looking pie! Here are a few of mine for additional inspo (at least I hope!). These were baked in a few different home ovens (some in my old apartment, some in my current home, where I started with a seriously underpowered Frigidaire oven and upgraded to a GE cafe; all were gas with gas broiler). ETA: all but the deep dish used my standard NY-Neapolitan style hybrid dough formula, which calls for:
62% hydration (ish)
bread flour or AP flour plus 2%(ish) added gluten
2.5% salt
2% oil
.5%(ish) sugar
1%(ish) yeast OR 10-15% active, hungry starter at 60% hydration (preferable)
Mix flour and water and allow to autolyze for 30 minutes. Add yeast/starter, salt, oil and sugar and mix well by hand. Over the next 4 hours (at room temp), do 3-4 sets of 3-4 stretch and folds to develop gluten. Divide dough into 325g portions and shape into balls. Place in oiled, lidded containers and refrigerate for at least 1 day and up to 3 days. Remove from fridge at least one hour (2-3 if kitchen is cold) before stretching and baking.
White pie with bacon, caramelized onions and pickled jalapenos (I think):
In a nutshell:
I make enough for two 12-inch thin pies -
266g King Arthur AP
165g water
7g salt
0.5 tsp instant dry yeast
4 grams sugar
5 grams oil
I mix in the dough cycle of my bread machine and portion it out into two even balls. I apply a bit of oil and let it sit in the fridge for 3 or more days in a plastic cylindrical container. Once its time to cook:
Take proofing container with dough out 3 hours beforehand
Preheat the oven for at least an hour to 550
Form a 12" pizza with the dough - I usually do this on parchment - if using parchment trim the edges so they don’t burn as much
Add sauce, cheese, toppings, etc.
Turn on broiler (optional)
Launch onto steel and cook for 5-6 minutes, turning about midway through.
Unlike so many other food writers pizza posts and books , the eaglespoon article is legit.
It would be helpful if people posted bakers percentages instead of weights and or volume, they provide an at a glance look at the dna of a recipe and can easily be scaled up or down.
pretty close to what I use, 2.5% salt is about the top of what I’d consider, you might consider dropping that to 2%. To keep things easy to remember, I use whole numbers:
100% King Arthur BF, sometimes AP
63% water
0.2% instant dry yeast
2% salt
2% oil
1% sugar
1% ldmp with a lintner value of 20% for same-day dough. Very hard to tell the difference between an overnight cold ferment and 1% ldmp
Sunshine came home with some mushrooms and requested a mushroom pizza for dinner. So I made up some dough, let it rise, lightly sauteed her mushrooms and made a pizza. I did something different with the outer crust (cornicione) this time. I made up an egg wash & added a fair amount of garlic powder to it. I brushed that on fairly heavy. It really came out nice & tasty.
I made a margherita pizza last night with homemade dough, homemade sauce, fresh mozzarella, and lots of fresh basil. It was very meh. I don’t know why I just wasn’t feeling it.
What were your dough and sauce like and how did you make the pizza? Fresh mozzarella on pizza will require an extremely hot oven so it doesn’t get rubbery and too watery before the crust is done.
