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The Last Great Pizza Thread

'Bout time we had a thread for all those that make their own dough and sauce. Too many good cooks on THP to let something as magnificent as that king of foods, pizza go unnoticed on this forum. This thread however comes with some rules to post...

1) Make your own dough and post the recipe. Thin crust. Whole wheat. Foccacia. NY or Chicago style. Naan....your choice!

2) Make your own sauce and post the recipe. Red. White. Olive oil w/ garlic. Whatever gets your mojo workin'!

3) Mandatory that it brings teh heat. Habs. Serrano's. Bhut's. T-Scorps. Fatalli. Hot sauce's and puree's will qualify. Using wimp sauce's such as Tabasco Brand or Franks will
be ridiculed with extreme prejudice and boooooed heavily!

4) Toppings can be anything. Pepperoni. Avocado. Greek olives. Pulled pork. If it came out of the ground or walked, swam or crawled, its all cool and the gang!

5) Bake them in the oven on a sheet pan. In cast iron. A pizza stone. On the grill. Got a wood fired pizza oven? Have mercy!

6) Pics are mandatory! Anyone can talk smack about it but put up or shut up. No pics? It never happened and ridiculing and boooooing will follow. Capiche?

Alright ya'll, lets get it on.....
 
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This is how I make my pizza. I also posted this in my growlog. I was planning on only putting it there, but then somebody mentioned this thread. If it's against the rules to put it both places I apologize. I also apologize for the terrible cell phone pictures

Most of this will be documenting the dough making process rather than the sauce or toppings. The sauce was a thrown together concoction with a generous amount of manzano and habanero powder thrown in. The cheese was low moisture whole milk mozzarella grated just before I threw it on the pie. I didn't have any other toppings lying around, so this will just be extra cheesy.

First, our ingredients:
IEmN2cl.jpg

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
~5 Cups flour
2 cups water around 95 f
2 teaspoons salt
Olive oil for the bowl
The scotch is optional, but it makes everything better. note: Scotch goes in your mouth, not in the dough

Mix the yeast with 2 cups of water and about 1 tablespoon of flour. Let sit for 10 or 15 minutes, until it is a bit bubbly on top. Then put in 3 cups of the flour and the salt. Mix until it is all combined like a batter. Combine another cup of flour until the very wet dough seems a bit workable and turn it out onto a lightly floured work area:
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The dough is going to be hard to work with at first, but that's fine. During the kneeding you can work another cup or so of flour in, but be careful not to add too much. I find it best to start out by stretching the dough out and folding it onto itself several times. A bench knife is very useful during this process. Eventually it will start holding together enough that you can kneed it regularly. After about 10 or so minutes it will look like this:
hWAqdiT.jpg

You can now put it in your mixing bowl that you have coated with olive oil and turn it to make sure that the ball is coated:
bHiZIIZ.jpg

Now set it aside and wait for it to rise. Some people cover the bowl, but I don't. It isn't really necessary. I then wait 3-4 hours for it to rise. This time will vary based on your temperature, elevation, etc. This is more or less how it will look when it is ready, but note that it dropped a bit because I started to turn it out before I remembered to take the picture:
3OMIfNl.jpg

Once it has been turned out, use the bench knife to cut it into four equalish parts.
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Make sure your oven is preheated to as high as it goes by this point.

If you are making 4 pizzas leave them all out to rise for another 30 minutes or so. If not, put the other dough balls into containers and refrigerate for storage. I like to use old Chinese take-out soup containers like these:
1QAwWjq.jpg

To stretch out the dough I like to grab one corner about an inch in and pull it from the surface and let the weight of the dough do the stretching. I think a lot of people make the mistake of working their dough too much and losing a lot of the bubbles and goodness by getting too fancy. I then balance the dough back and forth gently as it lays on both my hands and let it stretch by flopping back and forth, then when it is the right size I flip it onto a floured peel. Stretch it so that it is round and fills the peel, then put your toppings on. Sometimes I like to shake the peel a bit(picture the motion of poking a fire place) to make sure that the dough doesn't start sticking. Once the toppings are on I slide it into my oven. Unfortunately I forgot to take any picture of the stretching/topping process so I had to snap one just after I place it in the oven.
JLpiDhI.jpg

Notice that I don't have a pizza stone. I use 2 layers of unglazed quarry tile as my baking stone. It's cheap and safe and has worked great for me for years. The best part is not having to worry about breaking them. I think I bought a package of them 4 years ago at Home Depot for $12.
Here is the pie out of the oven:
A0eQtVK.jpg

And a slice just before I devoured it:
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SJ, big props! That's a good lookin' pizza. BUT, even bigger props to your use of "saltillo" tiles in your oven. I was gonna line mine with that, but found an alternative...

Ain't no doubt about what that this... damn gewd pie!
 
Thanks guys! The ingredients are very simple, but it's my favorite recipe for pizza dough. Credit doesn't go to me, I learned from a Sicilian chef who would get drunk and chat about pizza philosophy with me.
 
StupidJerk said:
Thanks guys! The ingredients are very simple, but it's my favorite recipe for pizza dough. Credit doesn't go to me, I learned from a Sicilian chef who would get drunk and chat about pizza philosophy with me.
Click to expand...

Ah yes. Pizza theory and all it's wonders.

Thanks for posting the recipe, I too will probably have a go at it. SO IT BETTER BE GOOD.................................. j/k



Mostly.
 
One trick I just found making pizza the other night (will post pics later - they're on my phone at the moment) - most recipes I see say "bake at 425" or "bake at 450"

The key to a crusty pizza is this: BAKE AS HIGH AS YOUR OVEN WILL GO!!!

I use parchment in order to get a nice crispy crust, and it works well - but high temperatures are a must. This last time I wanted to see what would happen if I baked at 550 (the top temp of my oven) and it made a huge difference. The parchment turned almost black, but that was not an issue - the crust was pizza-oven-perfect. I was so impressed with how perfectly the crust baked & rose in those temps - the cheese was not burnt, the crust wasn't burnt - it was crispy on the outside, and steamy-doughey on the inside.

yum.

give it a try - whether you use parchment or stone or brick or whatever - high heat really helps!
 
^+1 this is right.

I know I use a pizza oven but...... I cook at between 650-750 the hotter the better to an extent, but it really does create a great crust
 
All good tips on temp. I used to bake my pizzas at like 350F, and wondered why it was like chewing playdoh.

But what about oven rack placement when using higher temps? Bottom, middle, or top? I'd say bottom?
 
I used to think that too, but I have learned recently that above the middle toward the top is better. Doesn't make sense, but it works.
 
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