Anyone make their own Pizza ?

I think about it a bit but always end up ordering.
Would like to get into it so whats the best way / recipes ?

 

Most stores are carrying ready to bake crust now. Trader Joe's has a pretty good one. Actually they have three different varieties and all are pretty good. Toss some sauce on there and your favorite toppings and bake for about 15 minutes.

Good stuff and easy. Just follow the directions on the crust and pay attention when they say put it out on the counter for like 20 minutes before stretching it out. Otherwise it's like trying to stretch a rubber band.

 

I make my own several times a month on a pizza stone on my grill (oven in the winter). For dough, I use the pizza dough recipe that came with my stand mixer, but the amounts of flour and water vary slightly each time to get the right texture. Depending on the time I have, I either use a jarred sauce that I doctor up a bit for my desired taste, or I make my own from canned San Marzano tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, salt/pepper, and oregano. Cheese I haven't made on my own yet, but that's in the plans to learn sometime. As for toppings, I am simply; Italian sausage, homemade when I have it.


Mark

 

A few times a year we make our own. We use the bread maker in "dough only" mode
to make the crust dough and just roll it out. Then on with all the goodies! It's actually
very easy to do - at least using a bread machine - not sure if I could make the dough
by hand with the same success though.

Jedi

 

I do 90% of the time (just crust, not sauce- yet). It's a lot of work but also pretty rewarding when you get it right.

I'll send you guys down the rabbit hole with this one:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php

 

We make Pizza about once a month.... took us about a year to build the whole outdoor kitchen but a basic brick oven can be built in about a month for the price of a good Webber Grill.. check out www.fornobravo.com for free plans if you want to take it to the next level...

Picassa Album for our build... http://picasaweb.google.com/fornososo/Pizza#

Dave
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Very cool... love the Senate and people of Rome SPQR....

 

I make Pizza once and a while...


for dough I use:

all puropse flour 1.25lb sifted
Brewers yeast: 2oz
Luke warm water to bloom yeast
3 cups water
1 cut butter milk
salt - pinch
3 tsb sugar
olive oil - 1 TBLSp

Bloom the yeast, in warm water

Sift flower & sugar & salt together
mix in bowl slowly add the liquid - start with yeast first. add oil

mix until it forms a ball of dough, use extra flower to gather the dough - it should be smooth and not super sticky.

knead the dough for about 5 min, then gather back into a ball and spread oil on top, place in a bowl leave in a warm place for 30 min for dough to rise.

punch down the dough and knead again for 10 min.

Cut the dough into about 6-7 oz and roll out into desired shape. you can let it rise again or if you like think crust cook it like it is.

I usually put a coating of oil on the bottom as well as cheap parmesan cheese... kind of like using corn meal...

I like Pizza simple...


San Marzano tomatoes whole, seeded, and drained choped with some roasted garlic, then put in the oven to dry for 30 min... chop / mash into a paste... season with sea salt.

spread the pizza with tomato "sauce" then top with fresh mozzarella, and prosciutto, or very thin sliced pepperoni - I like finicchoio ... and may be add some garlic confit ( whole garlic cloved slowly boild in duck fat or Olive oil at very low temp, until its golden brown.)

bake in the oven & serve with fresh torn basil, olive oil, and fresh grated Parmesan....

drink with a nice Barolo....

mix

 

^^^ Thanks Tom! That's great!



Jedi

 

I make my own every time.

 

'Bout time you showed up!!!

I bet you do! Care to share any secrets, Oh Pizza Man?



Jedi

 

Thanks, my wife and pizza expert is from Rome.

Here are some photos of Pizzas and breads we have made in our wood fired outdoor oven. However, we used to make all of these fairly well in our conventional oven also. To cook indoors, we would use two pizza stones. One to cook on and one above for the radiant heat. We'd Pre-heat stones at 550 for 30-40 minutes. Then bake at 475.

Tip, When cooking indoors, quickly add cheese half way through the baking process or it burns. Not a problem in the wood fired oven as it cooks the pizzas in less than two minutes.

Dave
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davebdave,

What sort of temps do you get in the wood oven? How hot can you go reliably?

Thanks!

 

So I will be headed over to your place next time for pizza/bread/mini things that look amazing

 

+1 it's making me hungry!

 

As you can see in the photo with the bread loaves in the oven, the dome is perfectly clean. When you initially light the oven it soots up the entire dome like a fireplace would. After about two hours the temp is high enough that the dome/floor self cleans. At this point it does not smoke at all and eats wood at an alarming rate. The temp is probably about 2000F and we keep it there for up to an hour to really put the heat into the bricks. Then we let the fire burn down a little and spread the coals evenly around the entire oven floor to avoid a hotspot in the center. After about 15 minutes we rake the coals and fire to the side and toss just one log on top to keep the fire up. Now the floor is mopped clean with a wet towel. At this point our handheld infrared thermometer shows around 800F on the floor. After about 30 minutes it is down to about 650F which is ideal. Too hot and the crust burns before the pizza is cooked. Too cool and the pizza looses that classic wood-fired crispy bottom. The temp is maintained by keeping a good tall flame on the side fire at all times, the side benefit is the flame also provides all the light you need to cook the pizza.

After cooking Pizza, you can rake out all of the coals and let the oven cool to around 500F for Bread or just put the door on with the coals left inside and bake bread in the morning at about 450F. If you leave the door on after your bread you can do coffee cake at about 325 on the third day.

The reason it takes so long to heat up is that the dome is 6 inches thick. Overkill for pizza but great for bread. The dome is made of half cut firebricks, 1.5 inches of refractory cement, three inches of ceramic insulation, thin layer of mortar and then vermiculite filling the gap around the enclosure.

The beauty of making pizza outdoors is there is really no limit to how many people can eat. Flour and water is cheap and volunteers to roll dough and cook pizza are usually easy to find....

Everyone is invited!

Dave

P.S. Meats are fantastic in the oven. You use a grate with legs on it over the coals and grill/bake at the same time. You get a crispy outer surface and a perfectly cooked center.

 

Thanks for the rabbit hole!

 

We've done it on my ceramic grill. Works great. Used some oak chunks to fuel the grill, so got a good smoke flavor. Use a simple dough recipe from the "Italian Cooking for Dummies" cookbook. Also used one of their recipes for the sauce. Seriously. It is actually a GREAT cookbook if you like Italian food.

I spent a summer in Rome during college, and fell in love with "real" pizza. I have wanted an outdoor brick pizza oven pretty much ever since. Got one on the agenda when I get around to building my outdoor kitchen, hopefully later this year. But for now, the grill will work just fine! We cooked the pizzas at around 500 degrees, only takes a couple of minutes.
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I usually make my sauce from just either canned San Marzano tomatoes and some spices, or sometimes even just fresh cherry tomatoes chopped up with spices. My favorite is probably pepperoni and mushroom but have made pesto-chicken, sausage and black olive, and some others too.

 

Thanks!

 

Some awesome pizzas in this thread!!

Jedi

 

from my grill
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that pizza oven is amazing. my next house will have one for sure.

 

Agreed, it's more than awesome. I thought about building one in my current home, but my patio isn't big enough and I don't want to add on to it. My next house, however, will definitely have a wood fire oven.


Mark