My pizza recipe

[spinbaby]

After eight months of making a pizza every Friday, I’ve come up with a pizza recipe that makes a darn good pizza without being too fussy to make. I started with Alton Brown’s pizza crust, which was decent, but had issues—it contains sugar, you have to refrigerate it overnight, and you have to use the dreaded pizza peel, which I could never master. My version leaves out the sugar, rests at room temperature for a few hours, and bakes in a pizza pan.

You will need a stand mixer with a dough hook, a pizza stone, and a 12-to-14-inch aluminum pizza pan. It’s important that the pizza pan is aluminum and it shouldn’t be one of those perforated pizza pans.

Early in the morning, as soon as you’ve had that first cup of coffee, whisk together in the mixer bowl:

* 2 cups bread flour
* 1 teaspoon instant yeast
* 1 teaspoon salt (2 teaspoons if kosher salt)

Stir in enough warm water to make a fairly stiff dough—about 3/4 cup, although the exact amount seems to vary. You’re aiming for a dough that’s stiff without being dry. Attach the dough hook and work the dough at medium speed for 20 minutes. You should have a nice lump of dough smooth as a baby’s bottom. Pour a glug (very accurate measure here) of olive oil over the dough, flip it over to coat the whole thing, cover the bowl, set it on your countertop, and ignore until dinner time—at least eight hours.

An hour and a half to two hours before you want to eat, place the pizza stone onto your oven, and crank that baby up to 500 degrees. About 20 to 40 minutes before you want to eat, oil your pizza pan and start stretching the dough across it. The dough will have gotten softer and will be very elastic in that it will keep wanting to shrink back as you stretch it. You can counteract this by giving the dough a couple of short rests while you’re stretching it. At this point, you can top and bake the pizza immediately for a crispy crust or, as I like to do, rest it for 20 minutes before topping to get a chewier crust. I rest it for about as long as it takes me to sit down for a bit with a drink. Tonight’s drink was Metamucil, but that’s another story.

I top my pizza with jarred sauce, a shredded Italian cheese blend, canned mushrooms, sliced green pepper, and black olives, but you can top yours with whatever strikes your fancy. Then it goes into the oven—set that highly conductive aluminum pizza pan right on the hot pizza stone. It will be done in 15 minutes more or less, depending on how many toppings you piled on. Rest your pizza a few minutes before digging in.

[CaptainTruth]

1. A few years ago I tried making pizza out on the BBQ grill, it turned out great.

We've been making it that way ever since.

My wife makes the dough from scratch, enough for 2 large pizzas. We both like crunchy crust, so I put the dough (no toppings) on the grill & brown one side crispy brown, then flip them over, quickly add all the toppings, & brown the other side.

The pizzas come out nice & crunchy!

[dem in texas]

5. Yes, I have made pizza on grill, too

When I do, I like to used only fresh ingredients, with all on crust with cheese on top. Totally different from oven baked pizza.

[leighbythesea2]

2. Appreciate this

Detail with the dough.
I love to cook. Love to bake but dont much bc have been on keto nearly two years.
With no practice you forget what to do with any baking I've found.
Now, if a baking recipe is not very very descriptive I get worried.
this would make me try it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. I don't have any kind of a mixer,

so 20 minutes with the dough hook is going to be at least that long hand-kneading. Not sure I want to do that. I suppose I could see how the dough feels after ten minutes by hand.

I do like the leaving it on the countertop for 8 hours.

I keep on being dissatisfied with the way my home made pizza dough turns out, but I should try this one.

[Retrograde]

4. My husband and I have opposite techniques

I start with a cup of warm water, salt, yeast, and a pinch of sugar to wake up the yeast, then add flour until it feels like a pizza dough. Mr. Retrograde starts with a measured amount of flour, yeast, salt, and sugar, then adds water until it feels right to him. Both methods seem to produce the same result. Kneading is essential, and the pizza needs at least two rises: if we start making the dough ~2PM it will be ready at 8.

We haven't used jarred sauces in ages: while the dough is rising, chop an onion*, some garlic, and saute. Then add a large can of tomatoes - whole, chopped, diced doesn't matter since it will be pureed later - bay leaf, oregano. Simmer for about an hour - exact time is not critical - then let cool a bit and puree with a stick blender. This will make a lot of sauce, more than you need for one pizza, but it can be stored in the refrigerator for next week's pizza.

Top with whatever's in the house. I like no more than 3 toppings: pepperoni, mushroom, and olives, or pepperoni, peppers (don't be afraid to try hotter ones such as poblanos or anaheims), and onions. Zucchini is an interesting topping, but it shouldn't be too thin. Pre-Covid I was once at a pizza place in Madison, WI that had toppings like tater tots, spinach, and green salads. I've seen corn on pizzas in England, and eggs on French pizzas. I think as long as you're not in Naples, anything goes! Well, just about anything.

*If I ever write a cookbook, every recipe will start with "chop an onion".

[Laelth]

8. Hear! Hear!

Except for dessert, onion goes in everything.

-Laelth

[dem in texas]

6. My recipe for home made pizza

Years ago we lived near Fairbanks, Alaska; no such thing as chains restaurants up there in those days. Everything had to be made from scratch. My recipe has evolved over the years, I keep a copy because my kids, and now grandkids use the recipe.

Mom's Home Made Pizza

This recipe will make 2 or 3 pizzas depending on the size of your pans and how thick you like the crust; I like a thin crispy crust.

3 cups flour
1 package regular dry yeast
One cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 or 3 tablespoon oils (olive, canola, corn, any)

In the one cup of warm water, dissolve packet of yeast, add oil, set aside.

Place flour in large bowl, add salt and sugar and mix well. Made a “hole” in the center of the flour mixture and add the yeast liquid, mixing well. For a crisp crust, the dough should be very stiff, almost hard to handle, the more flour in the dough, the crisper the crust. If you like a thick airy crust, make the dough softer.

Turn dough out on floured board and knead for about five minutes. Rinse bowl in hot water (so it is warm to touch), then dry with clean cloth. Oil inside of bowl with a little oil, then place pizza dough in oiled bowl, turning so top of dough is coated in oil. Cover with cloth, place bowl in warm draft free place to rise (about 30 to 45 minutes)

Make Sauce
Tomato sauce or crushed tomato puree
Add 1 tablespoon oil
Two teaspoons dry basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Two teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon chili powder (Texas touch)
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together, set aside until ready to use.

Cheeses
Grated fresh parmesan
Grated mozzarella, fresh made if you can get it

Some toppings
Pepperoni
Hard Salami
Browned pork sausage,
Mushrooms (best if thinly sliced and briefly sauted)
Thinly sliced fresh tomato, onions or bell pepper
Sliced black olives, sliced jalapenos

After dough has risen to double in bulk, punch down and knead lightly.

Preheat oven to 475 or 500 degrees.

Grease pizza pans and roll or pat out dough in pan. If you have some cornmeal on hand, sprinkle a little cornmeal on the greased pan before patting out dough, you will have a crisper crust. I have a little hand roller, has about 6 inch roller on one end and a 3 inch roller on the other end. Perfect for rolling out pizza dough I use aluminum pans and a porcelain pan, all very old.

Once dough is rolled or patted out in pan, spread with the pizza sauce. Sprinkle with cheeses. Place on toppings. If using browned sausage, place on sauce, before cheese is added.

To bake, place in hot oven. To get a crisp crust on a home oven, half of the baking should be done on the bottom rack in the oven. If you are baking two pizzas, place one on the top rack and one on the bottom rack. Watch closely. Top rack pizza will brown on top, but not on bottom, bottom rack pizza will brown on bottom, not on top, so switch the pizzas between the two racks midway though baking.

If only making one pizza, start on bottom rack, lifting up edge of pizza to see if brown on bottom, finish off on top rack to brown top.

It will take about 10 to 15 minutes to bake the pizzas, depending on your oven. I have a peel and slide the pizza out on to the peels and slice with pizza cutter, then it goes on to the plates.

Freezing left-over dough. I have found it works best to pat out the dough into a greased pizza pan, cover and freeze with nothing on the dough. When ready to use, set out to thaw about 30 minutes. Then bake on top shelf of hot oven about five minutes, then put on the sauce, cheese and toppings and finish baking.

It you make pizza, often, I recommend getting a pizza roller, a pizza cutter and a peel.

[spinbaby]

7. That's very much the crust I used to make

It was an okay crust, but I wanted something chewier, like from a pizzeria. The book “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” recommended not mixing oil into the dough. Oil tends to inhibit gluten development by coating flour particles and leaving it out of the dough really made a difference. Gluten development seems to be the key to a nice chewy crust, hence the lack of oil in the dough, the long kneading, and the long rest.