Binko wrote:

mhill95149 wrote:Sometimes I make it, other times I buy TJ's or Caputo's when I make it I use a long slow fridge rise.

I seem to have a problem with the TJ dough constantly springing back on me, no matter how long I let it rest. Am I doing something wrong with it? I like the way it tastes, but I find it difficult to work with for some reason. My own doughs don't seem to have this problem.

You're not alone, it happens to me too. I believe the instructions say to take it out of the refrigerator for 20 min before using it but I usually give it 2 hours or so and it's still very difficult to roll or stretch.

Good to know I'm not completely crazy. My own doughs will spring back slightly, but the TJ's dough shrinks in a lot, like by half. I've done as you: left it out for hours to rest, and it hasn't helped it a bit. The dough is just a pain in the ass to deal with, or maybe I've just had bad luck with it.

My second time making the Cooks Illustrated thin-crust pizza recipe. It's a winner. I've tried a lot of different doughs employing varied rising techniques and durations and this is by far the tastiest and easiest to work with. Cooked on a Lodge cast iron pizza stone.

There is some very appetizing photos on here. Yummy.

I'm late to the party, because up until a couple of years ago dough & I were not friends. But I mixed up Jim Lahey's No Knead pizzza dough Sunday night & we've had pizza 2 nights (& counting). It's pretty dangerous because we could eat this every night.

One night I even made shrimp for my husband & he wondered out loud why on earth would he eat shrimp when he could have this:



Fig, Evalon, roasted garlic, & EVVO

2nd Pizza of the night:



Mushrooms, Mozzarella, & EVVO

Last Night's Pies:



My take on a popular one from this thread-- Caramelized onions, honey, EVOO, & finished with truffle salt

It was after eating this pizza, that my husband really complimented me & all I could make out from his full mouth while chewing was "Nick". Shut the Front Door, he means Nick of Great Lake Pizza fame!



Grilled Artichokes, EVOO, Evalon, & Mozzarella

All of these pizza were baked on a stone heated for 1 hour @ 550 (GE Profile gas--so it ain't fancy) then broiled for 6 minutes. My oven has 2 broil settings so the pizzas spend 3 minutes on low broil & then 3 minutes on hi broil.

Additionally, we never missed the tomatoes or sauce on these pizza. Usually, we feel like something is missing whenever we have pizza without tomato sauce on it.

Can you guess what's for dinner tonight?

Ava, those pizzas look great--I'm kind of jealous, I think you're a prodigy.


So, I continued to be obsessed with trying to get my oven temp higher. I couldn't figure out these instructions...

thaiobsessed wrote:I've been cooking my pizzas at a little higher temp lately by pre-heating to 550 with a Fibrament stone on the top shelf, then putting the broiler on for 10-15 minutes.
A couple months ago, I saw an interview with an inspirational home pizza-maker on Serious Eats who describes her technique for getting the oven hotter as follows:

My home oven preheats for about an hour at 550 (its highest temp) with a pizza stone on the second to bottom rack. Twenty minutes before I want to bake, I put an aluminum foil tube that contains a frozen paper towel core over the thermostat in the oven. This tricks the oven into getting to about 700 degrees. For a touch more heat, I turn on the broiler and put the pizza on the stone when I see the broiler coils just beginning to glow.

I have two questions about this.
1) Where is an oven's thermostat located?
2) What does she mean about the frozen paper towel core? Just the cardboard tube? It doesn't seem like it would get/stay that cold...
Any ideas about this appreciated

But then I saw this description of wrapping a wet cloth around a wooden spoon handle, wrapping the whole think in foil, then putting it over the the thermostat. I'm thinking about trying this tonight unless someone (trustworthy) tells me it's a really bad idea. I'm worried that if it drips it will crack my stone but I can't imagine it will harm the oven. Is this crazy?

thaiobsessed wrote:Ava, those pizzas look great--I'm kind of jealous, I think you're a prodigy.

Wow! I'm honored, just call me grasshopper. You've got this lock, stock, & barrel

Pizza, Pizza:



Corn, cream, caramelized onions




King Mushrooms, Spinach (from CSA box), Caramelized onions,Mozzarella, Parmesan, & EVOO

Mr.Pairs4life seems genuinely disappointed that we will NOT have pizza for dinner tomorrow.

Out of curiosity, what is "Evalan"? I tried Googling, and couldn't figure it out.

Binko wrote:Out of curiosity, what is "Evalan"? I tried Googling, and couldn't figure it out.

Darn it all, I misspelled it. It is an amazing non-barnyardy goat cheese. http://heavytable.com/the-best-in-the-u ... y-laclare/

Looks tasty. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

thaiobsessed wrote:...then I saw this description of wrapping a wet cloth around a wooden spoon handle, wrapping the whole thing in foil, then putting it over the the thermostat. I'm thinking about trying this tonight unless someone (trustworthy) tells me it's a really bad idea. I'm worried that if it drips it will crack my stone but I can't imagine it will harm the oven. Is this crazy?

So, I tried this and decided that yes, it was a bad idea (but only because it didn't work in my oven--if it had worked, it wouldn't be crazy at all).

I made the frozen cloth/foil/wooden spoon device.


The first hitch was getting the spoon out of the cloth:


After the cloth thawed a little, I was able to pull the spoon stump out and slide the contraption over the thermostat thingy in the back of the oven. At first, it seemed to fool my oven and the temperature started to climb (based on my infrared thermometer, but the oven registered a low temperature)--the temp got as high as 614 degrees before my oven display started beeping and showing the error message "DLB 1 RELAY or TCO Open". That's when I started to worry that I had done some permanent damage to the oven and could potentially be in the doghouse. Happily,about 10-15 minutes after I took the cloth/foil off the thermostat, the oven was fine. We actually have two ovens (different makers) and I was considering trying it in the other oven but was pretty much forbidden to do so...so back to my usual technique for now: preheat oven to 550 with Fibrament stone on the top shelf, broil for 15 minutes, then oven back to 550. This gets the stone to about 600 and it really retains heat so my pizzas are cooking in about 4.5 minutes.

Some recent pizzas:
I've been brushing the crust with chili oil, thus the odd orange tint of the crust

Pancetta, gorgonzola, rosemary, carmelized onions, pistachio


'Spanish' pie: tomato sauce spiked with pimenton de la vera, chorizo, manchego


Thai pork larb pizza


Dante lamb cheese, fontina, sopressata, carmelized onions, thyme

Those all look and sound delicious^

Thaiobssessed where did you get the Dante cheese?

pairs4life wrote:Thaiobssessed where did you get the Dante cheese?

I usually get it at City Provisions on Wilson [edited]. However, I most recently purchased it at Pastoral when I went go get some salami/sopressata. I also happened upon some Evalon which I loved! So, thanks for the suggestion. I made some pies with the Evalon last week:

Evalon (and Spanish chorizo)


Salumeria Biellese's Saucisson Sec Basque--really great


Corn, Evalon, Saucisson Sec Basque, tomato sauce


Corn, Evalon, Spanish Chorizo, carmelized onions

Topped with bacon jam, cherry tomatoes, and harvati cheese:

Interesting & delicious looking pizza Bill. Funny, I was just thinking come winter I'm going to dot a pizza with the Christine Ferber fig, bay,& honey jam along with some cheese.

Well I added a bit of bread flour to Lahey's No-Knead dough & it was darn near impossible to work with. Still the taste was delicious. Every single pizza I made needed mending. This didn't happen the last time. Additionally, a few stuck on the stone.

I used CI's sauce and cooking method heated the stone at 550 for an hour. Then lowered the temp to 500 & cooked each pie for about 11 minutes rotating the pizza half-way through.

That sauce is amazing, I did leave out the dried oregano since I don't particularly care for it & I was out.



EVOO, Basil, Mozzarella ,Sauce, & Parm



Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions, Raclette, EVOO, & Dante



Caramelized Brussel Sprouts & Onions, Sauce, Parm, Mozzarella



Corn, EVOO, Ms. Ingie's Sun-dried tomato & arugula pesto, & Evalon



Joel F's Delicata Squash, Caramelized Onions, EVOO, Angelic Organic's Sage, & Toma

Did a pizza with a pseudo Oktoberfest theme last week with New Zealand sharp cheddar, delit counter bratwurst from Mariano's and artichokes. I also used lard in the pizza and finally told my husband the secret which I had been keeping from him since the last few times I did pizza. The verdict? According to my husband it was the best pizza I ever made. Unfortunately, it was also the source of great discomfort that I won't go into details on but my husband still thinks was well worth enduring.

Sausage and mushroom.

I'm very stoked about my new pizza steel.
Someone smart decided to capitalize on this idea.

After seeing some nice press on Serious Eats, I ordered one. I skipped the carrying case though. Much as I love pizza, I don't see myself hauling this 15 lb piece of metal around.

Unlike the folks at Serious Eats, I found the steel gets hotter than my stone:





I'm still playing around with it a little but overall, I think the steel is really helping me get a nice puffy 'cornicione'


Some recent pies:

Sopressata, red pepper, onion, dante lamb cheese--this one got a little charred (5 min)



Chorizo, manchego, red pepper, red onion--4.5 minutes seems to be about right:







BBQ chicken:


Peperoni:

Very nice, thaiobsessed. You might want to try placing the steel on the stone. You get the benefit of the combined thermal mass as well as the efficient heat transfer of the steel. That is how I make NY-style in my kitchen oven and I really like how they come out.

Bill/SFNM wrote:Very nice, thaiobsessed. You might want to try placing the steel on the stone. You get the benefit of the combined thermal mass as well as the efficient heat transfer of the steel. That is how I make NY-style in my kitchen oven and I really like how they come out.

I was wondering what to do with my stone. Do you put the steel right on top of the stone or do you put them on different racks?

thaiobsessed wrote:I was wondering what to do with my stone. Do you put the steel right on top of the stone or do you put them on different racks?

Directly on the stone. Here is my 3/8" steel on my 3/4" fibrament stone:

Thanks for the tip on placing the steel on the stone, Bill/SFNM. I've been really happy with my pies made using the steel this fall/winter.

Here are a few recent pizzas:

Pear, pistachio, gorgonzola, caramelized onion:



Fontina, caramelized onion, sautéed shitakes:



Soppressata, thyme, fontina, manchego, caramelized onions



Green salsa, corn, roasted poblanos and bell peppers, cheddar/monterrey jack

thaiobsessed wrote:Thanks for the tip on placing the steel on the stone, Bill/SFNM. I've been really happy with my pies made using the steel this fall/winter.

Here are a few recent pizzas:

Pear, pistachio, gorgonzola, caramelized onion:



Fontina, caramelized onion, sautéed shitakes:



Soppressata, thyme, fontina, manchego, caramelized onions



Green salsa, corn, roasted poblanos and bell peppers, cheddar/monterrey jack

Always so excited when I see your name pop up in this thread thaiobsessed!!!! Looks good enough to eat

thaiobsessed wrote:Thanks for the tip on placing the steel on the stone, Bill/SFNM. I've been really happy with my pies made using the steel this fall/winter.

Delicious looking pizzas, thaiobsessed. I'm glad you like the stone/steel combo. Here's the dilemma about this approach. The steel delivers a quick blast of heat to the bottom of the pizza, rapidly expanding the moisture-laden gas bubbles that were formed by fermentation. This needs to happen while the gluten structure is still elastic. If the baking surface is not hot enough, the crust will be denser and harder. For a cracker crust, this would be good; not so much if you want a lighter, softer, airy crust.

The problem if you use high-heat to get a light crust is that the toppings may not be completely cooked at the moment the crust is perfect. Leaving the pizza in the oven long enough to finish the top can overcook the crust. There are lots of tricks for focusing more heat on the top (e.g., broiler). Commercial kitchens use a salamander. I use this in my home kitchen for all kinds of fun things:

http://www.amazon.com/Iwatani-Torch-Burner-Professional-Cb-tc-pro/dp/B0027HO3XO

The moment I think the crust has hit perfection, I pull the pizza out of the oven and hit the toppings with a blast of heat with the torch. I guess this may be considered cheating - so sue me. The results are worth the strange looks I get.

Here is a little video I did showing the use of a butane torch to finish the top of a pizza baked in my kitchen oven (best if viewed in HD):

That is so cool! And I thought I didn't need a butane torch because I so rarely make crème brulée!