"Homemade" pizza for dinner tonight...

**Duckfoot** · 08-02-2009, 10:26 PM

Not exactly a complete homemade deal, but better than the standard delivery fair...

BBQ Chicken w/ fresh tomato and onions...

Spinach / Feta cheese chicken sausage w/ fresh tomato, garlic and basil...

eschatz · 08-02-2009, 10:30 PM

Alright damnit.

I'm getting tired of all of these incredible homemade pizza threads. I stay thristy, hungry, and poor... You're killing me.

**PintOfBitter** · 08-02-2009, 10:38 PM

so if it's not truly homemade, explain its origins? I made homemade pizza last week, and it was fairly good. I can't bring myself to use white flour anymore (tastes so empty to me now) so the crust was just a bit too fragile.

Yesterday I baked some whole wheat focaccia, and my wife refused to eat it. kinda hurt my feelings, since recently i've been getting pretty good in the kitchen, and she's not picky... I suppose I need to refine my technique to use whole grain doughs.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice is an awesome cookbook I just bought, that I heard about on here. Teaches lots of fundamentals of bread baking (pizza dough included) if you wanna try your hand at TRULY homemade.

**ChshreCat** · 08-02-2009, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PintOfBitter

so if it's not truly homemade, explain its origins?

usually, that means storebought crust and then topping and cooking it yourself. That's the way I like doing it. Sometimes I even go so far as a pizza crust mix, but making crust from scratch just doesn't cross the extra work to benefit ratio for me.

menschmaschine · 08-03-2009, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChshreCat

usually, that means storebought crust and then topping and cooking it yourself. That's the way I like doing it. Sometimes I even go so far as a pizza crust mix, but making crust from scratch just doesn't cross the extra work to benefit ratio for me.

Making homemade crust is totally worth it IMO. I make it every week. One week I didn't have a chance to make it, so I bought a Pilsbury dough type of pizza crust in a cardboard tube. It was horrible! Making a good pizza crust is actually very easy with a Kitchen-Aid-type mixer.

2 crusts:

2 cups Bread flour
3/4 cup (warm) water
1 tsp bread yeast
1 tsp salt

Mix it in the mixer with the cake paddle first on slow/medium speed to get it all together (like 1 min.). Then switch to the bread hook on high(er) speed for 7-10 min. Take the dough out of the bowl and form it into a ball. Put it back in the bowl (you can glaze the bowl with oil so the dough doesn't stick later if you like) and cover in the refrigerator for ~24 hours.

Take it out of the fridge and out of the bowl. Cut it into 2 equal pieces, invert each one into a ball, and place it on a floured cutting board or plate. Let this rise at room temp. for 1 hour. If you only want one pizza, you can freeze one at this point for future use.

To form the crust, I use a roller to flatten it out. Then I spin-throw it up in the air a few times so the centrifugal force expands it evenly. Put it onto a corn-mealed pizza peel and you're ready for the sauce, cheese, and toppings. Another good tip is to use a BBQ brush to put a light coating of olive oil around the edge of the crust. This helps the crust brown and be crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside.

Seriously, aside from waiting for the mixing and waiting overnight, the amount of work that goes into each crust is like 20 min..

nealf · 08-03-2009, 12:18 PM

I agree with menschmaschine... but, I follow this recipe:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pizza

But, if you are lazy you could stop by Publix in the bakery section they have pizza dough there and it is generally very good.

pnj · 08-03-2009, 08:33 PM

Pizza Making Forum - Index

kinda like HBT....

**jpc** · 08-03-2009, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nealf

I agree with menschmaschine... but, I follow this recipe:

A Pizza Primer | The Fresh Loaf

But, if you are lazy you could stop by Publix in the bakery section they have pizza dough there and it is generally very good.

The one thing about this recipe over the other one is that it lets the dough "rest" for a while after the first mixing of ingredients. As I understand this, it is the single more important step, so that the flour gets properly hydrated to form the glutens necessary to stretch out the dough properly.

I follow a similar recipe (the famous Jeff Varasano recipe) that has improved my dough quality by orders of magnitude.

menschmaschine · 08-04-2009, 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpc

The one thing about this recipe over the other one is that it lets the dough "rest" for a while after the first mixing of ingredients. As I understand this, it is the single more important step, so that the flour gets properly hydrated to form the glutens necessary to stretch out the dough properly.

Is that because it uses all-purpose flour? There is less gluten in all-purpose flour than in bread flour. Here's a quote from a chef website:

Quote:

Bread flour is a high-gluten flour that has very small amounts of malted barley flour and vitamin C or potassium bromate added. The barley flour helps the yeast work, and the other additive increases the elasticity of the gluten and its ability to retain gas as the dough rises and bakes. Bread flour is called for in many bread and pizza crust recipes where you want the loftiness or chewiness that the extra gluten provides.

**Duckfoot** · 08-04-2009, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChshreCat

usually, that means storebought crust and then topping and cooking it yourself. That's the way I like doing it. Sometimes I even go so far as a pizza crust mix, but making crust from scratch just doesn't cross the extra work to benefit ratio for me.

FTW!!!

I use, dare I say it, Boboli for my crust... I am downright lazy as far as bread / crust making goes... However, I have been known to make my own pesto sauce, ice cream, etc etc etc....

All in all, it is still tasty and there is only one piece of the sausage pie left...

Given time and $$$, I would love to make my own pizza oven outside, next to my smoker and grill pit, and of course, the whole pig pit....