The Home Made Pizza Thread

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I'll give you a tip that can save you months of bad pizza. The hardest things for home pizza makers is identifying and buying the right tomatoes and cheese. Most grocery tomato products and cheese are no good for pizza, and that goes double for the ones that have "pizza" on the label. The ingredients are much more critical than you would think. You can write a perfect recipe, change one ingredient, and end up with something that makes Papa John's look good.

Two companies named Stanislaus and Escalon make great tomato products. You can find their products at restaurant supply stores. A lot of people love Grande cheese, but you may have to work to find a source. Lately, I have gotten great results by combining Publix sliced provolone and Publix sliced muenster. Boar's Head mozzarella is good, too, if cheese is worth $10 per pound to you. I used to combine Gordon Food Service provolone with Costco bagged mozzarella, and I got great pizza. Costco mozzarella bakes well even though the label says it's part skim.

There are all sorts of other cheese out there, but everyone needs an easy place to start.

You may want to get a pizza steel. Stones used to be the standard, but now a lot of people prefer steel. I made myself a steel from 1/4" plate. Some people go thicker. It's excellent for thin pizza, but I don't use it for Sicilian because stuff tends to slide off onto the hot steel, and I set the smoke alarm off once.

If you're using a home oven, you should probably not try to make fancy-shmancy, high temperature, Neapolitan pizza. Just go for something like New York or Detroit style. You can make perfect New York pizza at 500°. If you go around to pizzerias that make that style and look at their ovens, you'll see they're right down here with us mortals. Don't listen to anyone who says you need a special oven to make a New York pie.

Also, don't listen to people who say the dough has to ferment for days at low temperatures. Not all styles require that. I make the best Sicilian pizza I've ever had, anywhere, in about two hours, starting with flour and water. I did it the hard way, and there was zero improvement. You can beat the restaurants.

Oh, one more thing. Don't spend a fortune on fancy steel pans for Sicilian. They rust, and they're no better than aluminum, regardless of what anyone says. They make money for people who sell them. That's the only benefit. Get yourself some quarter-sheet pans and bake seasoning (fat) onto them. Pizzas will brown perfectly on the bottom, and they will pop right out. You can put a stone in the oven, too, and put the finished pizza on it if you want to touch the bottom up a little more.

Hope this helps.
 
Made a sourdough sausage mushroom and pepperoni pizza,thin crust
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I’ve had a Detroit pizza pan from Loyds sitting around for awhile. I finally decided to give it a go today.

I used King Arthur’s Detroit style recipe which uses a same day dough. My biggest misstep I believe was not cubing the cheese smaller to allow it to get down and make those crispy edges. Otherwise, it was excellent!

View attachment 780610View attachment 780611I have found that if you sprinkle a little parmesan cheese around the edge before you bake the pizza, you will get a crispy crust. What type of cheese are you using in the dough?
 
First attempt at the Serious Eats Foolproof Pan Pizza Recipe. Turned out really well and really easy to make. I like pan pizza, but normally would pick a thinner/hand tossed dough, but had friends over for football and this was just easier to prepare and make during the game. Half veggie/half pesto (I swear my phone always makes the pesto look darker than it really is).

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Not to get off topic but I'm going to (hopefully briefly) go off topic.

The blizzard isn't done yet. Hopefully it stays underwhelming, but I don't think you can count on that yet.
 
Not to get off topic but I'm going to (hopefully briefly) go off topic.

The blizzard isn't done yet. Hopefully it stays underwhelming, but I don't think you can count on that yet.
Oh, agreed. I’ll take it being half of its prediction. They were projecting 18-24 as a conservative snowfall amount for my area. I think we will end up with under 10 inches total from both storms. Wind is going HARD though, definitely not downplaying that especially considering how much just an inch of snow can blow around.

That’s why I stay inside and make pizza.
 
Fired up the pellet smoker pizza oven tonight. I used frozen leftover dough from the Super Bowl. Second time making pizza and it turned out delicious both times. Thanks to @OakIslandBrewery for his dough recipe and YouTube.
 

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I used extra strong Canadian bread flour for this batch. Remarkable how much more chewy the crust was with a 15% protein flour over the standard bread flour I normally use. 18 hour rt ferment. I prefer the lower protein flours for this but can see it working better for a NY style pizza
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it's a bit pale as I was keeping this one to reheat
 
This is pretty typical of my pizzas. I'm originally from New Jersey, so I always go for that excellent thin crust, high flavor style. I use Italian bread flour, Italian yeast, slow ferment. Garlic butter crust, fresh basil under the cheese, shredded mozzarella, homemade sauce if I can. I need to get a pizza steel to get a better under bake. But the top is excellent.
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I like my stone a lot. I bought a thinner pizza stone that is actually a set of four pizza stone tiles for my parents so I can make pizza while I'm there, and it just doesn't have the thermal mass I'm used to. Usually I parbake my crusts for 7-8 minutes at home, but when I visit there using the same dough it takes 10-12.
 
I have been making pizzas for a while now, and I'm not sure why I haven't posted any pics of mine here. Here's my latest pizzas:

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Pepperoni, mushroom, and peperoncini

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I made a Mississippi pot roast. Used the leftovers for this pizza. I added more peperoncini and shiitake mushrooms.

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Pulled pork pizza.
 
How did it taste? Every time I try using brewers yeast in bready things it always ends up tasting like weird banana bread.
 
Made the Serious Eats fool proof pan pizza again. Tried to make less dough, but then it was difficult to spread out the entire rectangular baking dish I was using. In hindsight I should have moved it to one side to at least get 3 sides of crispy crust, but it tasted great. Next time I'll use a pie pan. I have a 12" cast iron I could use, but it doesn't fit in my countertop Breville oven and I don't want to heat up the big oven. I also have an 8" cast iron that does fit, but that's too small of a pizza.

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Bought the wrong sauce by mistake. Thought it was Saporito, but I got Full Red, which is not as thick. Soupier than usual, but still a wonderful pie.

Boar's Head sandwich-size pepperoni and Grande East Coast Blend. Picture makes the pizza look thick, but it's a very thin 12" pie. Baked on a piece of steel plate.
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My wife got me a GMG pizza oven attachment for my pellet grill for Valentine’s Day. Little bit of a learning curve but they taste great. View attachment 815809
I have that one too. I love it! When it’s cold outside it can take up to 45 minutes to get to 650-700f. I’ve used it three time so far but this summer it’ll see plenty of use.
Which is fine because while it’s getting up to temp, I’ll throw in a cast iron pizza or bread while I wait.
 
Has anyone tried using whole wheat flour in their pizza dough? Maybe at 50%? Just wondering what it does and what you have to do differently.

I haven't gone anywhere near 50% whole wheat flour. The two recipes for dough that I've made most have included more than a pinch of whole wheat flour.

A Google search suggests that people out there are making it, I wonder how they describe their pizza

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe - Sally's Baking Addiction

"The crust is not nearly as chewy as pizza crust made with all white flour. However, what it lacks in chew, it makes up for in flavor."

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

"What's with the orange juice in this recipe? No, it doesn't make your pizza taste like oranges; but it does mitigate the somewhat tannic flavor whole wheat can sometimes have."

I'm surprised more people aren't up-front with the differences between their WW pizza dough and traditional doughs, but that's what I could find in a few minutes.

I also saw plenty of other websites with recipes for whole wheat pizza dough, so I guess it is more common than I thought. Go for it! Give it a try. And share how they turn out, because I'm really curious now.
 
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