Been making homemade pizza for the last 6 months, I am surprised with the quality I can get from a consumer oven now.
My usual dough is 65% hydrated, 4 oz (110g) of flour per pie, 10-15 minutes of kneading. I give it a 1-2 hour rise and then a 45 minute rise after portioning the dough. I like to let it rise overnight if possible.
I recently stopped using cornmeal on the base and I started to get leopard spotting on the bottom, which I was very surprised about.
What do you guys use for sauce? I take a few cloves of garlic crushed heated up in some olive oil and add a can of crushed or whole tomatoes + salt and let it cook for 30 minutes. This tastes fine but I think there is a lot of room for improvement.
I use a pizza stone right now because I'm too cheap/poor to buy a steel but I really want one.
Pic related is one of my most recent pies, my shaping has improved a lot and now they actually look somewhat like a pizza now.
Questions? Tips? What are some of your favorite topping combos?
I had a 'za today. The crust was sweet, like somebody had poured sugar all over it. It was disgusting.
Luis Ortiz
I've seen dough recipes that call for sugar and I've always been confused by that.
I think some of the reasoning behind overnight rises are the carbs break down some more and the crust gets a better char from the sugars.
here's a pic of a monstrosity I made a few months ago, but even the ugly ones taste good.
Grayson Kelly
>'za
Robert Rogers
...
Lincoln Fisher
forgot pic
Topping combos I like:
>frozen spinach with mozzarella + parmigiana + garlic olive oil >prosciutto (the 25$/lb stuff) + mozz + parm + red sauce - pizza is cooked for 4.5 mins, prosciutto goes on for the last min and then arugula when pizza come out of oven >classic 'roni >fresh clams + parm + pecorino + garlic olive oil >mozz + parm + perorino + garlic olive oil + oregano
Sebastian Gomez
I still enjoy the 'go 'za meme
Asher Price
Is that an egg in the middle? I gotta start using anchovies on some pies.
Pickles are great as a topping too (cucumbers and peppers).
Cooper Williams
If that's a picture of something you made, that's fucking impressive and I am jelly.
Jason Richardson
Mini Chinese 'go 'za
Christopher Clark
I had a mescarpone, honey and fig pizza, shit was fire. There was a thai pizza as well, peanut sauce, basil, peanuts, cheese, carrots, and lime aioli
Nathaniel Carter
Looks delicious.
Jose Miller
I really like to reuse any bolognesa sause left from my pasta, adding crushed tomatoes, a lot of garlic and nutmeg.
Man, I dont have a name for it but me and my friends love it.
Also the muzzarella is really important. I have luck and buy tons of it each time I visit my family in the country
Blake Campbell
It looks really good for a cheap stone and not much fermentation and that high of hydration, user. You should do 24 hours cold or lower yeast and do 6-8 room temp. What flour? KABF? I use that 90% of the time but ordered a 25lb bag of All Trumps earlier tonight and am excited about using a decent flour again.
Pic related is one of the better-looking cheeses I've made that I remembered to take pictures of. Baked on 1/2 in steel and a cheap stone on a lower rack to brown the bottom instead of burning it.
Here, I'll share my super-secret pizza sauce recipe. I experimented a lot and am very happy with it:
1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes (or crushed) 1 tsp salt 1/4 tsp coarse black pepper 2 tsp dried oregano 1 T evoo 1/2 to1 tsp anchovy paste depending on taste (this stuff is fantastic in tomato sauce) 1 T cheapo balsamic vinegar
Thomas Gray
oh ffs my picture...wasn't upside down for me :/
Nathaniel Roberts
some good lookin 'za my man
Kayden Garcia
Question:
How do you make 'za in a home oven? My oven goes to a max temperature of 250 °C. How did you get those nice spots? The only way I can achieve that is to first pan-cook the dough on a non-stick pan. Also, how do you flatten the dough without a rolling pin? I've watched many youtube videos and tried doing it myself but i keep getting stretch marks and uneven thickness. Thanks
Hudson Diaz
try using the SeriousEats "red sauce" as a starting point for pizza.. Its actually a really good technique for pizza with some tweaking to spices and such
Blake Martinez
fucking zucchini on a pizza
Anthony Cook
at the request of the people I made the pizza for, yeah I would have much rather them not be on either
Christopher Richardson
You need a pizza stone and a paddle/peel, for starters. You might get way with using a big piece of sturdy cardboard if you are too poor for a $15 peel. A digital scale is really a must also, since everything is done by weight and percentages instead of volume. A stand mixer is nice to have, too, but not 100% necessary if you make your dough and put it in the refrigerator overnight . 485F is on the low side, but if your oven has a broiler, that's good, because you can hit the stone with that to get it hotter after preheating for an hour and before baking, or even use it to cook for a portion of the bake once you know what you are doing. Opening dough balls isn't too hard. A rolling pin is a no-no. Watch some more videos on how to do it.
Too complex for pizza sauce. Lots of talented pizzaiolos even just use crushed or milled tomatoes with nothing at all added, or maybe just a little salt. Especially if you are going to put spicy meats on the pizza, a barebones sauce is preferrable to something with a long list of ingredients and spices.
>t. pizza know-it-all
Angel Hughes
If you have outdoor space, I HIGHLY recommend a tabletop gas grill. If you can get an affordable, decent quality one that has a lid you'll be able to do far more than pizza, but of course you'll also be able to make a mean pizza.
Why the fuck can't any of you make a round pizza? Do you all have palsy or something?
Daniel Cox
I thought this thread was dead 5 mins after I posted it
Thanks anons
I moved to a new apt a few months ago and the oven here is natural gas and so much better than the electric piece of shit at my old place.
I've just been using all purpose flour but I should get some of that Italian 00 stuff. I used to use that when I made grilled pizza.
I will try your sauce recipe, it looks good especially with the addition of anchovies. Is it an uncooked sauce? If not how long do you cook it for?
My oven goes to 290 c and I let the stone heat up for probably 45 mins.
As far as shaping the dough, practice makes perfect but it is alot easier if you let the dough rest after any handling. I usually let rest for about an hour. Too short and the dough isn't relaxed, too long and the dough is too hard to work with.
I've made a lot of ugly pizzas, my break through came when I was watching a webm of a guy stretching pizza dough some user posted. I dunk dough in flour and place on a heavily floured surface, pat flat, use my finger tips to further flatten from middle out and leave 1 cm of thicker dough around the edge for crust. then I'll lift it up and stretch until it is the size I want.
The NYC pizza style red sauce? I have made that before, I will look at it again.
Dubs confirms that pizza stone/peel and scale are all necessary
You can use unfinished quarry tiles as a very cheap stone I've heard.
Yeah I used to use crushed tomatoes, because I had heard the same but it was too bland, I probably need to add more salt though.
Blake Barnes
>I've seen dough recipes that call for sugar and I've always been confused by that.
Other than just making it sweet for our fatty palates, it helps crust browning and maybe gets more gas in it, and that's really the only reason to use it. It also can be used to lengthen the amount of time dough can be long-risen in the refrigerator by giving the yeast an alternate food source. Extra sugar to caramelize and make the crust brown is really the only reason to use it for home bakers, and if you've got a pro-level oven that gets really hot you don't really need it.
As you say, ideally the yeast eating the flour would be all you would want. If it's eating pure sugar, it's not doing the desired changing of the gluten structure in the dough. Purists-- and bona fide Neapolitan pizza makers-- never use sugar.
Jeremiah Young
Any experience with pic related? I want to get it.
00 is made for super hot ovens. It soaks up a ton of water, and if you don't have super high heat-- like 800-1kF, the water cant be exploded out of it like it needs to be. Bread flour or commercial high-gluten pizza flour is best for home oven bakers. They had some 00 at Whole Foods and I finally tried it. It wasn't that great. Bread Flour is the way to go unless you can get your hands on commercial pizza flour.
>Is it an uncooked sauce?
Pizza sauce is basically always uncooked. It cooks in the oven. It's not marinara sauce. If you make my sauce, blend up everything but the tomatoes to get all the bits dissolved, particularly the bits of anchovy paste. Then add the tomato puree or crushed. If u use whole peeled, you of course have to smash them up by hand or pulse them for a second or two.
>unfinished quarry tiles
Before I got the steel I looked for these forever and never found them. Another alternative is a cordierite kiln shelf. Better than cheap stones, maybe not as good as steel, but they are nice and big. I got the big 1/2 in steel. If I had to do it again I would get 2 of the 1/4 in ones, and put one at the very top and one in the middle, and broil for the first minute at the top and then switch it to the middle for the remaining 5 min or so.
James Barnes
>Pizza sauce is basically always uncooked.
not really true seeing as it mostly uses canned tomatoes
Michael Mitchell
Gemignani clearly knows what he's doing. I think people like his book, but I can't remember what people have said about the recipes with respect to how much he may or may not have altered them for home use. I really don't remember. Pretty sure ppl like it overall.
>What hydration do you usually use?
60% works well and never causes any problems for me (and there are never any launching disasters because the dough sticks), and is probably true to most real NY places. Maybe it's my technique or flour or oven, but I haven't noticed a ton of difference in between 60-64% hydration when using Bread Flour. Now that I've got some good flour coming, more water might make a noticeable difference, though.
Hudson Sullivan
Canned tomatoes are not cooked!
Adam Sullivan
Looks good mate Actually making my first Chicago style pizza as we speak.
Jackson Sanchez
yes they are
Parker Johnson
Thanks, mate. Share some pics when you're done!
Jayden Powell
Since this is Pizza thread, am i allowed to talk about this, just done from eating at this place and crossing the boarder.
