I made a pizza

I made a pizza, Barry made yummy noises....
Anchovies, red onion, orange bell pepper, pepperoni, tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella.

Oh my that is one beautiful pizza! Great picture. I think I can actually smell the spices! Thanks for the inspiration. --Joy

here's mine from tonight. sauce, oregano, mozzarella, sausage, red onion.

I think next time I'll turn down the heat a bit from 500 as the bottom got very dark before the sausage got sizzling the way I like it. Still dang tasty, however, even with the bland cheese & sausage from Cub Foods.

I guess it was a pizza weekend. Here's the pepperoni 'za I made earlier:



Closeup (a little blown out) after cutting:



Homemade dough & sauce, Cappiello braided mozzarella from Jewel (frozen just a couple of minutes to make grating easier), pepperoni from Paulina Meat Market. This was the first pizza I baked on parchment paper rather than a stone -- I'll never use the stone again.

Delk, can I just say, your pizza looks like a party?

Bob S. wrote:This was the first pizza I baked on parchment paper rather than a stone -- I'll never use the stone again.

did you set it straight on a rack ? How does the bottom brown ?

Bob,

Before working with the parchment, did you grease it or add some cornmeal to keep it from sticking? Your pizza was rolled out on the parchment, assembled and laid directly on the oven rack? Or was it made on something else and rolled on to the parchment?

My stone disapeered a few years ago. If you are as happy or happier with the parchment, then maybe I am back in the pizza game after quite a while.

Looking forward to your tips.

Regards,

Bob S. wrote:Delk, can I just say, your pizza looks like a party?

heh...It was a party. I actually made three different ones. We had some friends over to play Gin. There was also a sausage one and a plain cheese one. The one I posted was just the best pic of the lot....

tem wrote:

Bob S. wrote:This was the first pizza I baked on parchment paper rather than a stone -- I'll never use the stone again.

did you set it straight on a rack ? How does the bottom brown ?

and

Cathy2 wrote:Before working with the parchment, did you grease it or add some cornmeal to keep it from sticking? Your pizza was rolled out on the parchment, assembled and laid directly on the oven rack? Or was it made on something else and rolled on to the parchment?

My stone disapeered a few years ago. If you are as happy or happier with the parchment, then maybe I am back in the pizza game after quite a while.

In this case, I made the dough Saturday afternoon and put it in the fridge (in a ball shape in a bowl) overnight, oiled and well-protected. Sunday afternoon I did an initial rolling out on a floured plastic cutting board, got it into the basic disk shape, let it sit for a while to come up to temperature, and then indeed put it directly on the parchment paper (nothing underneath) and finished rolling it out and dressing it. It went directly onto my middle oven rack -- the 9-inch pizza took about 8 or 9 minutes, down considerably from the 13 or so required on the stone.

It actually occurred to me after I finished it off that I should have looked to see how well the bottom browned. The parchment paper itself was quite brown, and the edges of the pizza were about how I like them, but as a guess I'll have to say the bottom of the pizza was blonder.

Keep in mind, the difference between pizza on the stone and pizza on parchment paper is the difference between a nice crisp thin crust that would make a Chicagoan happy and a light, foldable crust that would make a New Englander happy. Although I won't use the stone for myself anymore, I'll keep it around for friends who might prefer the crisp crust.

Cathy2 wrote:Looking forward to your tips.

Oooh, maybe I'll have steak tips for dinner -- thanks for the idea!

Hi Bob,

I've had no problems creating nice, light, foldable crusts on my stone. Maybe a function of material, temperature, and oven characteristics?

Care to share your dough and sauce recipes?

foldable crusts => part of the hell that was my years living in Manhattan

FWIW, in Naples a quickly eaten slice of pizza (pizza a taglio) is often folded. They call this maneuver a libretto, like a little book. I've found it tastes almost as good folded....

A question for those hating on crust that can be bent: How do you eat a Chicago style thin crust? More to the point, how do you eat the slices (rectangles?) without a single edge of crust? I have eaten a few pizzas from a few places around Chicago, and good or bad, almost all were cut into a rectilinear grid pattern. This tends to produce 4 (or so) pieces in the middle with nothing but cheese as far as the eye can see.

Is the answer: The same as deep-dish, with a knife and fork? Is it: Stand up, and try not to get any on yourself? Is it: I didn't really like that shirt anyway? Is it: What do you think those wet-wipes are for?

I am not trying to be offensive, I genuinely enjoy a good Chicago thin crust. I have just never figured out the geometry of consuming those middle pieces.

By the way, delk and Bob, your pizzas look fantastic. I wish I had taken pictures of the ones I made on Friday night. On second thought, I am glad I didn't, because they were nowhere near the specimens of beauty pictured above. They were tasty, though. Bread dough with mozzarella, slightly cooked tomatoes, basil, salt and crushed red pepper

how do you eat the slices (rectangles?) without a single edge of crust?

I let my kids eat those, and I eat the crusty ones.

unbeknowneth wrote: By the way, delk and Bob, your pizzas look fantastic.

Thank you, I appreciate the compliment.

However, I don't think I'll be posting anything here for a while.

gleam wrote:I've had no problems creating nice, light, foldable crusts on my stone. Maybe a function of material, temperature, and oven characteristics?

Interesting thought, Ed. My assumption was that putting the wet dough on the hot stone quickly evaporated the moisture, but maybe I need to experiment further.

gleam wrote:Care to share your dough and sauce recipes?

Nothing special -- 3 cups bread flour, 1 cup warm water into which one packet of yeast is added, and a teaspoon or so of salt, mixed in a Kitchenaide mixer. The sauce was adapted from a recipe on America's Test Kitchen not too long ago -- poke around their site and it should turn up quickly enough.

(And I'd really appreciate hearing other people's recipes for dough and sauce. I've got a lot of learning to do -- I'm nowhere near the point of making a pizza as good-looking as the one delk made.)

Speaking of Pizza, did anyone catch this episode of Chef's A Field:

http://www.chefsafield.com/show_201.php

This guy, George Schenk, in Vermont makes incredibly labor intensive stone oven pizzas.

He makes his pizza sauce in a cauldron fit for Harry Potter, right on the fire, using mostly organic ingredients. Truly food of love. He also uses vermont maple syrup to sweeten the sauce.

Hi,

Rene G, Erik M and I went to recently closed John's Pizza in Calumet City a year ago, we found a unique pizza slicing where everyone had an interior as well as a crust:

Picture by Erik M:


There was one cut down the middle and maybe 5 perpendicular cuts across. Very diplomatic pizza slicing with everyone getting a bit of everything. Or at least a conversation piece for this region.

Regards,

I've started making homemade pizzas recently (mostly to save money). We have it as a quick week-night dinner. I buy the Trader Joe's refrigerated whole wheat pizza dough (99 cents). It produces a chewy, nutty crust. Instead of rolling, I usually hand stretch the dough and give it a few spins (the toddler really enjoys this and I haven't dropped one yet) I've been cooking on a cookie sheet - so the center doesn;t really crisp properly. (Baking at 450 for 12 minutes - the package recommends 8 - 10) Our pizza stone didn't survive the move, but I will definitely give the parchment a try.

As for sauce, I received the Penzey's wedding spice box as a wedding gift, which included = their pizza seasoning. http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyspizzaseas.html

I mix a tablespoon of it with a can of good quality diced tomatoes (i like Muir Glen) and let it sit for 10 minutes while the dough warms up and i stretch it out.

For cheese - the Quattro Formagio blend from TJ's is good, but a little rich, even with a light hand. They have also starting a Greek Blend with Kessiri and Mozzarella that gives a nice tang. Most of their cheese are rBGH free and are 3.99/lb shredded.

I've been topping with sliced roasted red peppers, someone gave us 4 jars of them and I'm slowly working my way through.

Does everyone prefer the toppings over or under the cheese?

Keep the experiences coming!

kafein wrote:Does everyone prefer the toppings over or under the cheese?

Really, it depends on the toppings. Things you want protected you put under the cheese, things you want to get browned and crispy and such you put on top. Sausage always goes on top. Pepperoni usually goes underneath in our house, although I do love it both ways.

Basically think of what kind of transformation you want the topping to go through. Do you want it to lose some of its moisture and brown, or do you want it to cook under a blankeft of cheese, keeping its texture.

It also depends on the temperature you're cooking at. Higher temperature = more browning on top.

Using the traditional Neapolitan-style bread dough and a pizza stone, I consistently achieve excellent results with regard to the texture of the crust of the pizza. A properly high temperature, wood burning oven as used in Campania and elsewhere in Italy or in the finest traditional pizzerie in New York, as so well documented by Pigmon on this board, will of course yield superior results to those obtained with a home gas-fueled or electric oven, but the pizza stone compensates crucially for some of the shortcomings of the home oven and is the method recommended for the home kitchen by all the experienced Italian cooks I know, myself included.

I was unaware of the parchment paper method, am glad to hear of it and look forward to giving it a try one of these days. That said, though, I find the pizza stone works very nicely for producing the sort of bread-like (as opposed to cracker- or pastry-like) crust favoured in Italy and for the most part in the northeastern region of this country. To my mind, regulating the temperature of the stone itself and the surrounding air of the oven as well as the time of cooking, together with the composition of the dough and the contours of the final product and even further factors concerning the dressing of the pie, all these variables leave considerable room for tinkering with the degree of foldability and the depth of crispness on the outer edge of the pie.

Antonius















Above photos from:

• Pizza e pasta casalinga: Home-made pizza and pasta
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=28099#28099

• IHDP: Internationales Haus der Pizza: Pizze casalinghe encore une fois
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=29441#29441

• IHDP: Internationales Haus der Pizza II: Pizze casalinghe otra vez con nuestras verduras del huerto
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=42251#42251

I'm curious as to which brands and such this or that people are using on their pizza.

We like a non-bending crust best, by the way.

We used to keep Pillbury Best for Bread in the house. Not great for pizza. Now we use King Arthur Bread Flour - it makes a HUGE difference in getting a crust where you can cut a triangle of pizza and it won't be floppy.

We do use a stone, but the locally bought (probably in the mall) thin thing was thrown out years ago. The Villaware pizza stone I ordered from:

http://www.cookswares.com/listbyline.asp?manuf=VillaWare&title=Baking+Stones

has made a world of difference. Decidely thicker and it really works to make nice brown crusts on bread and pizza. Of course you need more preheat time than for oven alone.

Another big problem has been cheese. I haven't seen braided mozarrella from Jewel than somebody mentioned. I hate Sorrento mozarella, Kraft has gone downhill, and I don't really want a fresh mozarella pizza.

Best I made recently was a blend of Chihauhua (Mexican white melting cheese), Cacciocavollo (which Caputo's has from time to time), some Parmiagiano-Reggiano and some Romano - all freshly grated.

I was stunned by how well the Chihauhua substituted for the mozarella when you are not looking for the fresh kind of experience. By the way, the brand was Supremo and found at Caputo's (or anywhere that sells a good selection of Mexican items).

Dusting the board with cheap polenta from Caputo's added to manageability.

I guess flour and cheese have been our biggest problems.

In the past we've erred on too many toppings. Bad for getting the pizza on the stone and it simply won't bake the same.

Lightly topped, fantastic. Like nothing we can order around here. Well, we didn't exactly make thin crust, we ended up with a rather puffed up bready crust on the edges that really pleased us.

Nancy

MJN wrote:Speaking of Pizza, did anyone catch this episode of Chef's A Field:

http://www.chefsafield.com/show_201.php

This guy, George Schenk, in Vermont makes incredibly labor intensive stone oven pizzas.

He makes his pizza sauce in a cauldron fit for Harry Potter, right on the fire, using mostly organic ingredients. Truly food of love. He also uses vermont maple syrup to sweeten the sauce.

When living up in Vermont, I ate this pizza a half-dozen times. It was quite a decent pizza (yeasted bread dough cooked with great ingredients in a blazing hot wood fired oven)--and the restaurants were inviting and...Vermont-y. The oven was the soul of the place, and was basically stood right in the middle of the restaurant. Another unique element was that the oblong pie was sliced into 2-inch strips instead of wedges, squares or slices.

I'm sure it's not quite the same as fresh out of the oven, but you can buy frozen American Flatbread pies at Whole Foods, and sometimes at Fox and Obel.

www.americanflatbread.com

Hi all,

Pizza is at or nar the top of my favorites list...and searching out the best crust recipes and methods for various styles of pizza is only part of the battle. It continues with stones, pans and screens, different brands of mozzrella and various cheese blends, the quest for the right sauce including which type and brand of tomato product to use (by the way, if you are maing a deep dish pizza, I must say that after my virgin attempt with it this weekend that Escalon 6-in-1 is pretty incredible), and of course, not just an argument of what toppings (or fillings), but which brands, fresh or cooked and how much to put on comes into play as well.

If you are interested in this, I highly recommend checking out the following website - http://www.pizzamaking.com. It has an addictive cult following much like this one! It's especially good for ex-Chicago-area people like myself who struggle with finding great pizza where they live!

Same dough recipe, same batch as the pizza I made above (it had been frozen, then in the fridge for a couple of days, and was out at room temperature for about an hour before I prepped it); same sauce recipe, different batch (no sausage this time, and I used Del Monte rather than Red Gold, so it's a little sweeter). Same cheese, with a sprinkle of parm-reg underneath to provide a little nuttiness to the flavor. And a sprinkle of basil and parsley over the top when it was done because I liked how it looked on delk's pizza.


Fresh out of the oven.


The interior texture of the crust.


Cathy2 had asked if the parchment allowed the crust to brown. It does, though it's still fairly blonde. Of course, the indentations are from its sitting right on the oven rack.

I am about to plunge hadlong into pizza making. I have had trouble finding the large quarry tiles that Alton Brown recommended as a cheaper alternative to the thick soapstone often used in pizza stones.

I often wondered whether terra cotta would be a workable substitute as it retains heat well, wicks away moisture and is readily available.

Anyone have any experience with using this as a pizza stone instead?

gastro gnome wrote:
I am about to plunge headlong into pizza making.

I totally agree with RSMBob. The forum at http://www.pizzamaking.com is a great place if you are serious about pizza making and to get all kinds of information from hard-core pizza making fanatics. I used to think I baked kick-a** pies, but since hanging out there I have learned so much and my pies have gotten so much better. The forums are divided into different types of pizzas. I hang out almost exclusively in the Neapolitan forum, but there is a Chicago-style board if that is your favorite.

Bill/SFNM

Just like that char siu meme that struck LTHforum awhile back...here, I've succumbed to a siren song of beautifully caramelized toppings, and puffy, yeasty crusts.

No pictures I'm afeared, but inspired by Bob S. and the aquisition of 5 lbs of King Arthur unbleached bread flour, this past weekend I made my first ever batch of pizza dough; froze 2/3rds and this evening utilized the remains for my first pizza.

Huzzah!

excellent results for this relatively neophyte baker:

and I swear I'll do it again

thanks LTH

---oh...um...I used the parchment paper/semolina flour method with great results...

one of the reasons I've never attempted home breads is the idea that you have to have tiles, etc.

woohoo for parchment paper(it's not just for en papillote anymore!)

The upside to the cool weather we've been having lately:



From the bottom up: crust, olive oil, ground pepper, pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, diced tomatoes.



Interior shot, with the texture of the crust. I was pretty happy with the way this turned out. As you can see, even with the parchment paper, the crust has a burnt spot. (I made one a few nights earlier that was just as good, but the pics turned out pretty blown out. That one was fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil.)

More to the point, how do you eat the slices (rectangles?) without a single edge of crust?

those are my favorite. i eat them with my hands. i pick them up and get my hands greasy, and then eat them. then, i wipe my hands on a napkin.

I havent tried this recipe as it calls for some expensive equipment to make but I found this an intresting read anyway:
"How to make authentic NYC pizza"



Software engineer and NYC pizza lover Jeff Varasano has reverse-engineered the pizza from his favorite NYC pizza joint and posted the instructions for all to enjoy. The secret:

It's all in the crust. My dough is just water, salt, flour and yeast. I use no dough conditioners, sugars, oils, malts, corn meal, flavorings or anything else.

Jeff's Famous Pizza: http://www.sliceny.com/jvpizza.php