Topping Overload Dilemma

When we were newlyweds, my bride wanted to try her hand at making pizza. Asked how I wanted her first effort. I asked for a simple Margherita, stressed light on topping and thin crust. A short time later.

I was speechless!!!

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I assume your wife had previously encountered or at least seen a picture of a margherita?

If the OP insists on larding on the toppings, treating the pizza like a plate of fast food nachos, then the solution is to make the crust more sturdy.

The best way to do that, short of making a deep dish pizza, is to use cornmeal in the crust (as opposed to semolina flour), or a combination of cornmeal and flour.

Cornmeal with provide a bit more crunch and crispier exterior, creating a more resistant layer upon which to layer on the toppings.

But as others have said, when it comes to toppings, less is more, more is not more.

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Oh yea. She has a FOMO problem with food.

She always has to over order, over load and over buy when it comes to food. Yesterday, we LOADED up at Marina Foods (Taiwanese supermarket), Costco, and Hankook (Korean supermarket).

Rain forecast for the next four days. No worries about having enough food on hand, we won’t starve. :slight_smile:

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Experience is the best teacher. We have a pizza oven in the country. We have to stand over guests while they construct their own pizzas and warn them off over-loading. One guest was surprised to find that his pizza morphed into a calzone when he tried to turn it in the oven. Ooops.

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Don’t feel so bad – there are lots of types of pizza and lots of variance in quantity of toppings.

As @ipsedixit (sort of) said, it’s more about whether your crust and your toppings are a match for each other. As in, a thin, neapolitan-style crust can barely hold up sauce and a bit of cheese before it collapses, whereas a New York-style crust is sturdy enough to support a whole layer of ziti :rofl: (And then, of course, there’s a Chicago pie that you could load up with as much sausage as it will hold.)

Personally, I like enough topping that I get a some in every bite – I don’t want 1.5 pieces of pepperoni on a whole slice. But even distribution is key to not having a loaded center.

You might enjoy a look at these past pizza threads (with plenty of topping loading going on) or join in with your experiments on the current Dish of the Quarter thread, which happens to be on Pizza.

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Regina-style pizzaScreen-Shot-2020-05-26-at-11

Hyper-regional pizza styles are a source of local pride

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there’s two mega-issues not covered in the discussion.

#1 - the pizza dough
has to be high hydration - i.e. % of flour to liquid “i.e. water” must be high.
if you are wimping out with a really wet dough ‘cause it’s easy to work with’ - not good.

#2 - bottom heat is absolutely essential to a crisp pizza crust.
I use a ceramic round plate; steel plates are also popular&heavy.
a minimum one hour preheat at max oven temp is required.
ever been to a pizza place that starts your pie in a cold oven?
thinking ‘everything is preheated’ when the oven beeps . . . not such a good idea.

we only do homemade pizza. mostly as the “sauce” I use is thick stewed tomato and not ketchup tasting commercial preps.

when sliced, this crust ‘snaps’ - some toppings applied…

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I think you mean “if you are wimping out with a really DRY dough.” That said, you can have a sturdy pizza with either high or low(er) hydration dough. In fact, if you are doing a thinner crust (e.g. a NY style or Neapolitan style), your crust will be sturdier at a lower hydration, all else being equal. If you go with a thick, focaccia-like crust (think Grandma, Sicilian, Detroit-style, etc.), you’ll be using a very high hydration dough by default, but as long as you bake it properly, it will end up sturdy simply by virtue of its thickness. And let’s not even get started on gluten development, sauce consistency, etc. Lots of variables in this equation!

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I’m going to go against the flow and say I love a fully loaded pizza. My husband and I used to order delivery pizza from a shop in our old neighborhood that had numerous toppings, their special. That is what we try to replicate at home. FWIW, that restaurant had been around for a very long time and was opened by Italian immigrants. I keep intending to make a more “authentic” Margaretta type but I end up making my typical everything one. Sometimes it comes out soggy but we still like it. I heat up the oven and pizza stone hot and long. I also cook the pizza much longer than most people do so the crust has more time to cook. I let the top and crust burn a little. Caramelized, as some like to say. If I did not consider pizza my lazy cooking night meal, I would consider baking the crust a little before topping it. That might help you with sogginess issues.

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I appreciate almost all types. Lots of toppings, less toppings, more cheese, less cheese, no cheese, white /red.

Sturdy or flimsy, doughy or thin. Crispy .

I don’t like hard cracker type crusts as much. I’d probably still eat it, though. :joy:

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Same. I can appreciate the balance of a lightly topped Neapolitan from an aesthetic, cheffy standpoint, but if I’m eating it, I really prefer a higher cheese to crust ratio no matter what the style.

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As Willy Wonka says, “Strike that; reverse it”.

:slight_smile:


Definitely this. I have an in-oven dial type thermometer. My oven beeps “I’m at 550°/F!” when the thermometer shows it’s still around 470. I usually start it about 80 minutes before I plan to bake the pizza.

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Confusing (at least to me) at best…

@HappyOnion’s post said “has to be high hydration … if you are wimping out with a really wet dough … not good.” So WTF does that mean?

Other suggestions on the pizza DOTQ thread is that I lower my dough from 66% to 60 when my first came out soggy with just sauce and cheese. Of course there were cooking issues involved as well (top rack & convection recommendations) that will be addressed next time.

confusing . . .

sorry about that - the brain took a short vacation and yes “high hydration” implies a wet, stick dough. using a wet dough can easily result in the crust not baking properly and being soggy.

another issue can be . . . after creating the perfect crust . . . it comes out of the oven and onto a solid surface. the pie is still ‘cooking’ and moisture gets trapped under the crust turning from ‘perfect’ to ‘soggy’ - out of the oven I put it on a rack for 5 minutes to cool, before slicing.

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I almost always par-bake my pizza dough/crust before putting the toppings on it. And blasphemous/sacrilegious/heretical as this may sound, I usually did so in a VERY lightly olive oil coated frying pan. This firmed up the bottom side of the dough/crust and generally prevented uncooked bits and the failing of the crust to hold up to the overload of toppings.

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Me too, but I use Stonefire pizza crusts so i have no issue with sogginess.

I just picked up a package of the Stonefire crusts to try for the first time. They’re small so we will probably make our own individual pizzas (which works for me, because we prefer different toppings and our take out pizzas are generally a compromise).

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Yes they are small, I eat three slices and save the last one for breakfast, usually with an over easy egg on top.

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Pizza that is soggy from overloading, IMO, is but one manifestation of overestimating ingredient volume/quantity. Everyone does it to some degree. When we’re slicing mushrooms or sausage, and grating cheese, and ladling sauce, we prepare too much. And then, usually, we feel compelled to use it all, no matter what.

In the case of pizza, I think it helps to always think of toppings as condiments. And to keep that in mind when prepping them.

As for crust management, I’m not above frying a soggy slice.

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