par-bake thin crust pizza dough?

Some friends and I will be heading to a lodge of sorts in 2 weeks for a few days, and I've been tasked supplying the food. There is a push for me to make pizza, since everyone likes homemade pizza. I use a pretty standard dough recipe from the Best Recipe cookbook from Cook's Illustrated.

So, for ease of transport, can I bake the crusts the night before I leave home for use in making pizza the next day? I realize there may be SOME quality loss, but if it is minimal, I'd like to try.

I'm thinking make up the dough for a nice 24 hour rise, then shape it and bake it on the pizza stone partway. Then, when it's time to eat, put toppings on the parbaked crust and just put it on the oven rack to finish it. How long would I bake them for? Half the time?

Opinions? Will this work? After I parbake the crusts, I assume I let them cool and wrap them in plastic. Any thoughts?

I almost always parbake my crusts - sometimes immediately before topping, and other times I freeze them for later use. That said, I make only gluten-free crusts these days, and the recipe and crust thickness does make a huge difference in how long I parbake them.

Since you said thin crust, I would think about 5-8 minutes, then ten more after you top it. But, without having used that recipe, I'm not certain. My favorite is a tapioca crust - based on a South American cheese bread recipe - and even though it's quite thin, it takes 12-15 minutes to parbake, then ten more at 475 with the toppings.

Can you make a part of a recipe ahead of time and test it? Just bake it until it's not gooey, but isn't brown at all.

For packaging it, I let them cool and wrap in foil, then plastic - but that's because I'm freezing them. Since you are using them quickly, plastic would be fine I would think.

I have done this, I've had kids' birthday parties where I made a bunch of crusts and then the kids could pick out what toppings they wanted on theirs. (Very popular.) It works all right, the crust comes out a little different than my usual method of cooking on a pizza stone but it's fine. Timings seem a little long to me, but could be right in your oven, who knows?

ViewsAskew-

A test run. Excellent idea, and one I should have thought of. Saturday lunch perhaps.

MikeG - I'll report back with my timing results.

Thanks for the help.

I would mix up the dough, place it in the refrigerator, transport it in the ice chest to keep it cold, then let it rise at the lodge to be baked at the lodge. IMO, retarded dough that is kept cold for a few days is much better than reheated crusts. It is often better than non-retarded dough. You could do a test run on this method also.

Bill/SFNM