The Home Made Pizza Thread

ba-brewer said:

@6Tap, I see you have some fine ground corn meal in your pic, is that for your dough or as an anti-stick agent for the bottom of your pizza?

For an anti-stick agent a medium ground seems to work best for me. Too fine and it seems to absorbs moisture from the dough and the dough sticks if I don't work fast. Too course(polenta) works great for sliding off the peel but seems to get embedded into the crust and needs to be swept off the bottom.

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Not for the dough, but to let it roll off the peel. I must share with you that one time I guess I let the pizza sit too long or just didn’t use enough and boom I needed to turn my pie into a calzone.

I can see the mushrooms now... thanks.

ba-brewer said:

@6Tap, I see you have some fine ground corn meal in your pic, is that for your dough or as an anti-stick agent for the bottom of your pizza?

For an anti-stick agent a medium ground seems to work best for me. Too fine and it seems to absorbs moisture from the dough and the dough sticks if I don't work fast. Too course(polenta) works great for sliding off the peel but seems to get embedded into the crust and needs to be swept off the bottom.

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Thanks for the tip.
I added a few teaspoons of it for my dough. Figured I would toss in a bunch of random stuff for my 1st home made pizza attempt.

That dough gets awfully sticky though!
The dogs were all over the kitchen when I was flinging it off my fingers. Can’t stand stuff stuck to my hands. Stuff almost sets up like epoxy.

Been watching my oven and I don’t think it wants to get above 475 degrees. Guess I’ll pop it in now and see how it bakes. [emoji482]

Ok.... last and final update for my 1st home made pizza attempt.

The short. I’m really not sure what I made.

Personally, it looks like something that grows on the trees in the Amazon Forrest. [emoji85]

No wonder I don’t bake.

I can’t stop laughing.

Anyway, I made what looked like a pizza on a breadboard and was all ready to transfer It onto a hot stone plate that I had in the Oven at 475 degrees and the un baked pizza decided to epoxy it self to my breadboard and did not want to move so I had to fold it up for transfer.

Guess I’ll call it a calzone. At least it tastes good.

Yea. Next time, build it on the stone plate 1st!

Anyway, I have one more dough ball left in the fridge to make it right in the near future. If the 2nd dough ball does not give me the pizza I’m looking for well then I can always go back to having beer for dinner.
[emoji482][emoji482]

@6Tap
Your pizza/calzone does not look too bad, I would eat it. Glad to hear it tastes good and you were able to salvage it.

When you say stone plate are you talking the pizza stone? Don't think you want to do that.

You can build and form pizza on a metal pizza pan and don't use the stone at all. A slightly lower like 450 or 425 and a little more time makes a decent pizza. Using a dark color pan helps with browning.

Look back at some of applescrap's post he forms his pizza on parchment paper, makes transferring easy. I have never used that approach but it seem like a good way to do it with sticky dough. I am guessing you can slide the parchment paper out from under the pizza after a few minutes once the crust sets to get a crispier crust.


If you want to try cooking on the stone this might help,

Sprinkle a decent layer of corn meal on the peel(a nice single layer but you can still see wood, but more is better than less). If you got the right amount of corn meal it works like little ball bearing to help pizza roll off of the peel.
Form your crust on the counter then gingerly transfer to the corn meal, get it closest to the edge of the peel.
Work quickly now so corn meal does not suck up moisture.
Build your pizza, try not to mush down on dough too much.

Transfer to the stone is not difficult but it is a little tricky in that once started you cant really stop.
Hold peel at about 20 to 30 degrees (not flat not too steep) as you put it into the oven.
Position just before the spot you want pizza to land(closer to door in oven) with forward edge of peel close to stone.
With a short jabbing thrust like motion get the pizza to start sliding off the peel onto the stone and draw the peel out from under the pizza. This should happen in a fluid motion don't dilly dally.

Sometime it requires a little wiggle of the peel and an increase in the attack angle of the peel as you pull it out from under the pizza.

@ba-brewer Thanks for the tips!

Getting the pizza off the peel successfully was the hardest part for me to learn. As mentioned, corn meal will help. I build the pizza on the peel, but you have to work as quickly as possible. Then before I launch onto the stone, I give the pizza a little jiggle just to make sure it's not stuck. Then shimmy one edge onto the stone and it should be pretty easy to get onto the stone from there.

If it's not loose when you jiggle it, it's going to be a problem to get onto the stone.

@6Tap I’m under the impression you transferred from the bread board to the stone, is that right? If that is the case definitely use parchment until you get a peel... parchment will even help the crust to brown on the bottom. I’d still use a sprinkle of corn meal too, but with parchment you could skip it.
I found an inexpensive wooden peel at a kitchen gadget place, if you shop around you might be able to get one for under twenty and you’ll want it the same or just a little larger than your stone. That way the pizza will fit the stone.

I find the dough is easier to work when it isn’t sticky, as you continue you’ll discover what works for you. The only pizza I make or want to eat is Neapolitan/NY style so that is my point of reference.

Hey, you made a pie then turned it into a calzone. It tasted good and both look the same when we swallow it. Am I right?

Hoppy2bmerry said:

@6Tap I’m under the impression you transferred from the bread board to the stone, is that right? If that is the case definitely use parchment until you get a peel... parchment will even help the crust to brown on the bottom. I’d still use a sprinkle of corn meal too, but with parchment you could skip it.
I found an inexpensive wooden peel at a kitchen gadget place, if you shop around you might be able to get one for under twenty and you’ll want it the same or just a little larger than your stone. That way the pizza will fit the stone.

I find the dough is easier to work when it isn’t sticky, as you continue you’ll discover what works for you. The only pizza I make or want to eat is Neapolitan/NY style so that is my point of reference.

Hey, you made a pie then turned it into a calzone. It tasted good and both look the same when we swallow it. Am I right?

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Yep, I tried to transfer it from the breadboard to the stone and it was stuck. There was very little flour on the breadboard.
It did taste good. In fact, I almost ate the entire thing and then I quickly slipped into a food coma and took a nap. [emoji12]
Lesson learned today.
Thanks for the tips! [emoji482]

Has anyone tried adding vital wheat gluten to all purpose flour? At first glance seems like it might be an easy way to improve the stretch of the dough

I don’t. If I have bread flour I use it, but there isn’t a huge difference. Some pizza aficionados use 00 flour which if I am not mistaken is a lower gluten flour. But, it works best at 900 degrees I just read and they also said AP is just fine for practically anything the home baker wants to bake. You want to stretch the dough and let it stay where you stretched it. High gluten that hasn’t rested will bounce back and not stay where you put it.

Hoppy2bmerry said:

I don’t. If I have bread flour I use it, but there isn’t a huge difference. Some pizza aficionados use 00 flour which if I am not mistaken is a lower gluten flour. But, it works best at 900 degrees I just read and they also said AP is just fine for practically anything the home baker wants to bake. You want to stretch the dough and let it stay where you stretched it. High gluten that hasn’t rested will bounce back and not stay where you put it.

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00 just designates the finest grind and lowest ash content of Italian flours (equivalent to French type 55, or most American flours it is available in protein contents from pastry to high gluten bread levels.

Way to go! Got to start somewhere and yep, it can get messy. Especially with wet dough. I can tell you how to get wet dough ready to toss but you will figure it out and it might be more powerful to do that. My buddy spreads straight on stone, not the worst idea and I think that could work well. He has done that for years. He has a new one with glazed inside and short walls. I use a steel and put pizzas on it. Parchment is great but you will see how my pizzas brown sporadically on bottom because as pizza shrinks and stretches it brings parchment with it and that creates some areas that hit steel and some that dont. I could fix that i suppose but dont want to for convenience.

If you make pizza on stone no need for mess just spread with evoo like I do. Best of luck look forward to more updates.

6Tap said:

@ba-brewer Thanks for the tips!

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applescrap said:

Way to go! Got to start somewhere and yep, it can get messy. Especially with wet dough. I can tell you how to get wet dough ready to toss but you will figure it out and it might be more powerful to do that. My buddy spreads straight on stone, not the worst idea and I think that could work well. He has done that for years. He has a new one with glazed inside and short walls. I use a steel and put pizzas on it. Parchment is great but you will see how my pizzas brown sporadically on bottom because as pizza shrinks and stretches it brings parchment with it and that creates some areas that hit steel and some that dont. I could fix that i suppose but dont want to for convenience.

If you make pizza on stone no need for mess just spread with evoo like I do. Best of luck look forward to more updates.

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Are saying your buddy puts his pizza directly on the stone without corn meal when you say " he spreads straight on the stone" or is actually spreading the dough and building his pizza on the stone? If the later is the stone cold or hot when your buddy spreads the dough and builds the pizza?

If it was cold it seems to defeat the purpose, hot seem a bit sketchy, well at least for me I would for sure burn myself if I tried spreading dough on a 400F stone.

Pizza is sort of like beer, many ways to do and still get pizza.

ba-brewer said:

EVOO also has a fairly low smoke temp do you have issues with smoke when you bake your pizza?
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Are saying your buddy puts his pizza directly on the stone without corn meal when you say " he spreads straight on the stone" or is actually spreading the dough and building his pizza on the stone? If the later is the stone cold or hot when your buddy spreads the dough and builds the pizza?

If it was cold it seems to defeat the purpose, hot seem a bit sketchy, well at least for me I would for sure burn myself if I tried spreading dough on a 400F stone.

Pizza is sort of like beer, many ways to do and still get pizza.

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The dough must absorb the oil because never had smoking issue. Corn meal and flour used to throw pizzas will smoke. Yep, he spreads it on the cold stoneware like someone would do with a pan i suppose. He knows it will crack if it gets thrown onto a hot stone or steel. He makes thick heavy topping pizzass so putting in cold works.

OK thanks for the clarification, makes more sense to me now. My wife like a veggie pizza with a lot of wet stuff, it can be tricky to get every thing to cook right sometimes.

By not oiling the bottom of a pan or parchment the dough will stick and spread rather easily with oil on top. I will put parchment (oiled) on top of dough and that allows for very nice spreading with no mess. I roll between two pieces of parchment for the big thin pies.

A word about my friends pizza while I have a sec. He spreads dough straight on his circle stoneware. He then tops with his sauce that is made with sausage and hamburger, pound of each if I am correct. Then iirc goes a layer of cheese, then a layer of pepperoni and some more cheese or something like that. At 450 for however long it takes to cook that monster I think he gets an ok crust. I agree with you there are so many different types of and ways to make different pies. Its fun all these varieties.

6Tap said:

one more dough ball left

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I was rooting for you when I read it was your first time. The crust color in your calzone/turnover is nice.

Home made pizza attempt #2 came out better thanks to all of your tips!

Stretched this one out on a breadboard then moved it to my lightly oiled (olive oil) pizza stone so I could add all of the toppings.
Came off the stone just fine.

Made 1 cheese slice for my kid and the rest for me.

Still have lots of recipe and temp adjustments to do but at least there is hope...

Highly recommend drinking a hb xxipa with home made pizza. Wow! Awesome combo! [emoji482][emoji482]

Looks like you have pizza making down.

The little slice makes me nostalgic, thanks. Now the little chowhounds eat a whole pie it seems. Still touching and looks great.

6Tap said:

View attachment 659421
Home made pizza attempt #2 came out better thanks to all of your tips!

Stretched this one out on a breadboard then moved it to my lightly oiled (olive oil) pizza stone so I could add all of the toppings.
Came off the stone just fine.

Made 1 cheese slice for my kid and the rest for me.

Still have lots of recipe and temp adjustments to do but at least there is hope...

Highly recommend drinking a hb xxipa with home made pizza. Wow! Awesome combo! [emoji482][emoji482]

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That second attempt looks awesome @6Tap . Good topping choices too

Sorry if this has already been covered a gazillion times here, but I just use parchment in my 500F to 550F oven.

Im sure that wont work in a dedicated pizza oven, but with how many distractions I have around the house (3 kids under 4), it's the best option for me.

Forgot to take pictures the other day. I have a bunch of left over Italian Beef Hoagie rolls from my son's Beerthday Party. I told my son (11) I could make him French Bread Pizza for dinner.

He's like ah maybe. I split the hearty rolls in half. Sauced them. Then topped with leftover mozzarella from the lasagna (also party related).

My son loved the French Bread Style Pizza. I don't think I have had it since I was a kid. When my wife got home he told his mom dad made cheesy pizza sticks. I cut them cross wise in slices so they looked like pizza sticks.

This is my rerun of this today...

My ultra thin Italian Mexican fusion pizza from a few weeks back. Tortilla, 4 cheese blend, pepperoni and cooked sauce.

Very last minute new years pizza. Homemade deer sausage and leftover veggies from the fridge. Ended up tasting good.

Family came over and I made 3 big sheet pies, cut ny style, everyone chowed. Not the best pics. Huge slices

Late New Year's Eve, New York Style. Half cheese, half hot Spanish chorizo and Jalapenos.

6 days fermented dough
rosemary, garlic, walnuts, mozzarela, gorganzola

Yum!

Not sure if this is bread or pizza but we have fallen love with these quick bread sticks. I spread a pie and butter it. This one was oiled. Then ideally garlic and a little salt. Maybe rosemary. I sprinkled with savory spice pasta sprinkle. Thats two sprinkles in one sentence. I dock it and then brush with butter when it comes out. I cut the sticks parallel to that first cut. Two pics with and without flash. I kind of miss the big air pockets. The malt powder gives the bread a softer, chewier consistency, I think.

Some specialty flours to play w today. Plan to make up a few smaller pizza w various flour mixes.

applescrap said:

Not sure if this is bread or pizza but we have fallen love with these quick bread sticks. I spread a pie and butter it. This one was oiled. Then ideally garlic and a little salt. Maybe rosemary. I sprinkled with savory spice pasta sprinkle. Thats two sprinkles in one sentence. I dock it and then brush with butter when it comes out. I cut the sticks parallel to that first cut. Two pics with and without flash. I kind of miss the big air pockets. The malt powder gives the bread a softer, chewier consistency, I think.View attachment 660337View attachment 660338

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Not pizza, certainly could call it bread... Look into focaccia.

Tonight's experiement was delicious....as confirmed by 3 other people. I made a 70% GP/30% Buckwheat flour mix, unleavened. Rolled it out paper thin by accident....worried it was too thin, but cooked up deliciously crispy. Even such radically thin crust would support a slice of pizza though.

Also, its not burnt...the buckwheat flour is dark and cooks up darker...its not the best visual appeal, but sure is tasty.

Sounds good. Did you added yeast and waited for dough to ferment? Not a big fan of crispy pizza base but buckwheat flour sounds interesting.

One time I made a dough with 50% wheat flour and 50% full grain spelt flour. It was light and super delicious, but it didn’t ferment out well. I left it for 48h, but I guess yeast was dead or full grain spelt flour doesn’t ferment as well as regular white flour. So the dough ended up as cracker or crispy cookie

Hoppy2bmerry said:

Not pizza, certainly could call it bread... Look into focaccia.

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focaccias are amazing. I usually use same dough as for pizza. For pizzas one portion is around 280g - 290g, but for focaccia I use around 1500g. Bake in the deep dish with a lot of olive oil. Use same cheese and everything, sometimes I add oven baked cherry tomatoes or nuts. Always comes out amazing.

DaveLeaf said:

Sounds good. Did you added yeast and waited for dough to ferment? Not a big fan of crispy pizza base but buckwheat flour sounds interesting.

One time I made a dough with 50% wheat flour and 50% full grain spelt flour. It was light and super delicious, but it didn’t ferment out well. I left it for 48h, but I guess yeast was dead or full grain spelt flour doesn’t ferment as well as regular white flour. So the dough ended up as cracker or crispy cookie

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No yeast/ferm, my wife likes thin crispy crust so I dont see much point...just been making unleavened (no yeast) bread. It also makes the doughs really quick and easy.

It was paper thin, like half the thickness of a saltine cracker, yet it still cooked stiff enough to support a slice without bending. Im guessing that was due to the buckwheat as I dont think you could do that w just GP flour.

A bit of sugar added would help the yeast get going. Or just using baking powder if you want to fluff it up a bit but not wait for fermentation (most "quick" pizza dough recipes do this).

DaveLeaf said:

View attachment 660509


focaccias are amazing. I usually use same dough as for pizza. For pizzas one portion is around 280g - 290g, but for focaccia I use around 1500g. Bake in the deep dish with a lot of olive oil. Use same cheese and everything, sometimes I add oven baked cherry tomatoes or nuts. Always comes out amazing.

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We are thinking of making something like a focaccia with the left over buckwheat mix dough.

Since we’ve had some discussion on peels and screens I’m sharing a sale on those items code @checkout JANSAVE ends 1/8 @ midnight. (I get no benefit from sharing)
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/sp...m_medium=email&utm_campaign=Costco-Jan06-2020

I started with a wood peel, but later got a smaller metal one with a folding handle I like better. Pizza seems to slide easier on the metal one for me.

I still use the wood one(or a pizza pan) to get them out which frees up the metal one to build pizza on.

Made a ny for dinner and decided to whip up some chicago pizza w left over dough. Haha, only showing you one because other sucked. Each was half pound hamburger, layer of cheese, layer of pepperoni and layer of tomato sauce. Seasoned and a dash of pasta sprinkle on top. I think hamburger was supposed to go under pepperoni. The kids said they didnt like them last time these they were eyeing closely .