What Pizza did you make or eat today?

[salemj]

Tried a new dough recipe which worked very well. This has red sauce, mozz, parm, hot sausage, long peppers, and kalamata olives. Cooked at 500 on an Emile pizza stone, which I love. Very tasty!

[XexoX]

Tried a new dough recipe which worked very well. This has red sauce, mozz, parm, hot sausage, long peppers, and kalamata olives. Cooked at 500 on an Emile pizza stone, which I love. Very tasty!

So Mr. Joe, what was the dough recipe? Enquiring Minds Want to Know!

[ronnie_suburban]

Tried a new dough recipe which worked very well. This has red sauce, mozz, parm, hot sausage, long peppers, and kalamata olives. Cooked at 500 on an Emile pizza stone, which I love. Very tasty!

Sounds great and looks fantastic!

[salemj]

Tried a new dough recipe which worked very well. This has red sauce, mozz, parm, hot sausage, long peppers, and kalamata olives. Cooked at 500 on an Emile pizza stone, which I love. Very tasty!

So Mr. Joe, what was the dough recipe? Enquiring Minds Want to Know!

It is a work in progress. Basically, I rarely decide to have pizza the night before, and I also really don't like dealing with cold dough. I also don't keep "special" pizza flours on hand. So I wanted a recipe to start around lunch to be ready for dinner, but one that approximates a "good" dough made with proper pizza flour that sits for a while, given these obvious constraints. I'll tell you what I think the "right" recipe is, but then explain what I did.

"Right" recipe (untested):
400 grams flour (ideally about 1/3 whole wheat)
1 1/4 cups water
1 tsp yeast
2 tsp kosher salt
about 1 tbs olive oil

Mix all ingredients except oil in mixer on medium. Add olive oil after it mostly combines (oil will inhibit gluten development if added to dry flour, so avoid this). Mix for about 3-5 minutes total, no more (no need to "develop" the dough). Make sure it is basically a deflated ball, scrap sides if necessary to roughly form, and let rest for about 4 hours in the mixer bowl with a towel on top. This SHOULD be a rather "wet" dough that you cannot handle easily with your handles

After first proof, scrap out onto a floured surface. Divide dough into 3 portions. Flour and shape into balls as necessary, kneading in flour if the dough feels too wet until they are desired consistency (as a wet dough, flour them just to the point that they can be easily handled without sticking to your hands). Let rest 20-40 minutes (covered), then shape or roll dough into half-size crusts using plenty of flour, starting with the first to make pizza one and leaving the others to rest further. This makes the later ones easier to shape/roll into size.

This should make three pizzas of about 13-15" or so (I make mine oblong to fit my pizza stone, so they are more like 13x18 or so). I find this is a great amount for 1 pound of meat (in this case, sausage), 12 oz of mozz (the standard hard block size in most grocery stores, which I find makes far better "cheesy" pizza than most fresh or soft-ball mozz) and about 1 15oz can of crushed tomatoes (although there is always a little extra sauce).

What I actually made started at 360 grams flour and only 1.5 tsp salt. I had to add quite a bit of flour to get the right wetness to the dough in the mixer...I'm guessing about 40 grams at first, and then a decent amount more while kneading/shaping.

There are a lot of words there, but if you think through it, this is a rather low-maintenance dough that fits a real-life schedule very easily. To me, the dough is very supple, and it also produces nice bubbles (I roll my crusts, but if you don't, you'll get a few wonderfully large bubbles with this crust!).

[XexoX]

Thank you Mr. Joe. I'll try that tomorrow! I've got some Canadian bacon and pineapple chunks just waiting to be made into a pizza.

[Bensbites]

Day 1 with the Ooni. I tried Ooni cold ferment dough because it could sit in the fridge if the delivery didn’t happen.

[Jeff B]

Day 1 with the Ooni. I tried Ooni cold ferment dough because it could sit in the fridge if the delivery didn’t happen. 468C2C05-8F0B-4FA7-BD2F-E0564E6E9C8E.jpeg6772F508-CA97-4BBB-B3ED-1A1D49963236.jpeg40896BBD-4D2D-45B5-995E-FBDC50FF527B.jpeg

Cool! How was the bottom of the crust?

[Bensbites]

Day 1 with the Ooni. I tried Ooni cold ferment dough because it could sit in the fridge if the delivery didn’t happen. 468C2C05-8F0B-4FA7-BD2F-E0564E6E9C8E.jpeg6772F508-CA97-4BBB-B3ED-1A1D49963236.jpeg40896BBD-4D2D-45B5-995E-FBDC50FF527B.jpeg

Cool! How was the bottom of the crust?

Thank you. The bottom was cooked about right. I didn’t love this dough, the first time with the Ooni wasn’t a fail, but I know their is room for improvement.

[Bob Z]

Redemption from my last where i forgot the yeast...
Made 3 today with Tony G recipe, let em cold ferment in the fridge for 2 days and baked on a steel for about 6.5 mins at 500. Each dough was about 250g so fairly thin crust as we like em.
Btw this is a great time to season your carbon steel pans too...

[Bensbites]

I am part way though forkish’s 72 hr biga dough for Wednesday night. This will be run #2 on the Ooni. The biga smells nice and boozie.

[Bensbites]

Tonight was simple as far as the toppings.

Fresh mozzarella

GF from elements of pizza

NY style cheese.

]

[Bob Z]

Looks good Ben, I bet there is a learning curve to making pizza at that temp in less than two minutes. Were you happy with the results and taste?

[Bensbites]

Looks good Ben, I bet there is a learning curve to making pizza at that temp in less than two minutes. Were you happy with the results and taste?

I really like who this dough had turned out in the oven a couple weeks ago. I am still learning more about this Ooni. I am very excited to get my sour dough up and running. That might help with deeper flavor. The 72 hr ferment is good, but I want more flavor.

[trancher]

Looks good Ben, I bet there is a learning curve to making pizza at that temp in less than two minutes. Were you happy with the results and taste?

I really like who this dough had turned out in the oven a couple weeks ago. I am still learning more about this Ooni. I am very excited to get my sour dough up and running. That might help with deeper flavor. The 72 hr ferment is good, but I want more flavor.

In the very distant past, I added Braggs ACV to the sourdough ferment to increase that sourdough taste. It worked VERY well in that bread. Worth looking into.

[XexoX]

I used Mr. Joe's pizza dough recipe listed above, and that turned out fine and dandy. I'm baking on a sheet at 500° F, for 20 minutes. Used what I have on hand, so Canadian bacon, a sliced tomato, three sliced green onions, and three sliced fresh mushrooms. Obviously that is a bit of "watery" veggies, so the liquid from them ran out and made part of the crust real soggy. Oh, the "sauce" was some peeled, canned Italian Plum tomatoes, hand crushed with some salt and OO added per Jim Lahey.

So, suggestions to avoid that soggy situation?

Also, when Italian sausage is used, is it loose, or links? Precooked? Any advice appreciated.

[salemj]

I used Mr. Joe's pizza dough recipe listed above, and that turned out fine and dandy. I'm baking on a sheet at 500° F, for 20 minutes. Used what I have on hand, so Canadian bacon, a sliced tomato, three sliced green onions, and three sliced fresh mushrooms. Obviously that is a bit of "watery" veggies, so the liquid from them ran out and made part of the crust real soggy. Oh, the "sauce" was some peeled, canned Italian Plum tomatoes, hand crushed with some salt and OO added per Jim Lahey.

So, suggestions to avoid that soggy situation?

Also, when Italian sausage is used, is it loose, or links? Precooked? Any advice appreciated.

Eek! Soggy dough is no fun. I did try the recipe again myself and was again pleased with the results (I used the "revised" amounts I posted and it was pretty close to ideal, although I still added a generous amount of flour when kneading and rolling out to make sure the dough felt dry and manageable after to rise).

I use crushed tomatoes for the sauce because they are thick and I like red sauce (I usually add garlic, dried oregano, tomato paste, and olive oil). I believe a sauce like that helps keep the crust dry, much like mayo keeps a bun from getting wet and soggy from wet ingredients, whereas putting wet tomatoes/pickles directly on a fresh bun causes it to disintegrate. I also always put toppings on top of cheese, because I like them to get charred and it dries them out faster, again reducing sogginess. And I always slice wet ingredients like bell pepper very thin for the same reason (faster evaporation), usually less than 1/8 of an inch. And I always place my pizza stone at the top of the oven, so that the top of the pizza gets maximum heat to match that coming up from the element at bottom of the oven.

Because my pizza stone (Emile Henry) is actually the shape of a baking sheet, I pull it out of the oven after pre-heating and build the pizza on it, so the crust starts cooking immediately. I do this regardless of the recipe. But it may also have an effect. I also notice that a stone even cooks the top of the pizza a lot faster than either using a sheet or putting a pizza directly on the rack (if frozen/store bought)—when I make my pizzas, the cheese often starts melting as I built it on the stone. In fact, when I don't use a stone, I often switch to the broiler to finish a pizza to get a nice finish on the top.

I like my sausage maximally crisp and small, so I always pre-cook it and often mince it or run it in the food processor partway through cooking to get maximal browning. It then has a bacon-bits type consistency, which I love, especially for very hot Italian sausage. It also helps render the extra fat (but not too much), so that the pizza doesn't get soggy from fat/oil, which can easily happen with sometime like sausage when you use a lot (like I do!). I am not a fan of big chucks of coarser grind sausage that some people/stores use, but I know some people are—more power to them.

My pizza doesn't pretend to be something it is not—it is a basic, fast, homemade pizza. But I find it delicious, and so do friends. In fact, I find it better than most pizza I can get out. But when I lived in New Haven for 8 years, which is widely considered to have some of the best pizza (particularly—the best crusts) in North America, I looked forward to an excuse to go get pizza out. After that experience, I had no interest in trying to match long-age fermented doughs cooked in 1-3 minutes using the tools I had at home! haha. Instead, I just go for a tasty, satisfying pie.

[Bob Z]

One secret I learned is use two stones, start with one and finish with the second, but you need two stones...

As far as sauce goes, light coating is enough. But where i think you got waterlogged was from your veggies. Back east the italian places use canned mushrooms. squeeze out all the moisture and you are good to go. When i got to Ca yuppie places use fresh shroom slices, which turn into little black pieces and if you make em too thick then they can sog out your crust since they are mostly moisture. So, if you want to use fresh shrooms, slice em and saute em first, dry them off then put on the pie. For other veggies very thin slices are a must
I see you are using a baking sheet? if you just use that with no stone your crust wont have a chance to get done on the bottom, Id prolly use the lowest rack (closest to heating element) and you can always finish the top (if it isnt done enough) under the broiler.

[XexoX]

Thanks Mr. Joe and Mr. Z. I have a Blue Star gas oven, and the heating element is actually in the back of the oven. I've thought of leaving a pizza stone on the bottom of the oven, but without a heat source there, not sure it would help. The last one I made turned out better. I used the convection fan and did try the broiler and that did help finish the pizza. I was also getting the crust too thin I think. Getting used to this stove is an on-going experience. I'm considering getting a baking steel, but do need to get a peel. I do prefer the taste of fresh mushrooms over canned, when on a pizza. I'll try sauté them first though.

[Bob Z]

You need a stone or steel because you first pre heat your oven with the stone/steel in it, and it retains the 500 degree heat to get your crust going. Since you dont have the benefit of a floor heat source you need one of these for sure. I have a steel, it sure is a hefty thing and Id hate to drop it, and i see it lasting forever vs a stone cracking/breaking getting discolored etc. But many stones are rectangular which means you can put a sheet tray on em and they give you a larger surface to utilize.

Getting a peel, yup def need one of these too. Id go for a metal one vs wood which in my opinion seemed stickier to fresh dough, and metal would be lighter also.
After you get your peel and try it out make sure the pizza isnt stuck to it before you try to load the pizza into the oven!!! Some flour/cornmeal/semolina on bottom of crust helps here. Or if none of those seems to work you can make the pie on top of a piece of parchment paper then slide it in. The paper comes right off after a few minutes in the oven if you want to take it off before the pizza is done.

[XexoX]

You need a stone or steel because you first pre heat your oven with the stone/steel in it, and it retains the 500 degree heat to get your crust going. Since you dont have the benefit of a floor heat source you need one of these for sure. I have a steel, it sure is a hefty thing and Id hate to drop it, and i see it lasting forever vs a stone cracking/breaking getting discolored etc. But many stones are rectangular which means you can put a sheet tray on em and they give you a larger surface to utilize.

Getting a peel, yup def need one of these too. Id go for a metal one vs wood which in my opinion seemed stickier to fresh dough, and metal would be lighter also.
After you get your peel and try it out make sure the pizza isnt stuck to it before you try to load the pizza into the oven!!! Some flour/cornmeal/semolina on bottom of crust helps here. Or if none of those seems to work you can make the pie on top of a piece of parchment paper then slide it in. The paper comes right off after a few minutes in the oven if you want to take it off before the pizza is done.

Thank you Mr. Z. Most helpful. I'll keep you posted.

I do have a stone (well, I had two, but dropped one). I'll try it with the next pizza. If I can get a covered area outside, I might get one of the KettlePizza for the Weber.