Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade Pizza (4 page)

Creating Your Own Thin-style Pizza Oven

Thin-style pizza when cooked in a pizzeria is usually slid directly onto the floor of the pizza oven using a pizza peel. Since your home oven is not specifically made to cook pizza, we need to simulate this capability.

A baking stone is what is used to do this; it is a circle or rectangle made of unglazed ceramic material. Another type of baking stone consists of a number of ceramic tiles held together in a metal frame. The baking stone is put in the oven on a lower rack and is heated to about 500 degrees Fahrenheit. The pizza is assembled on the pizza peel and you slide the pizza (carefully!) directly onto the baking stone to cook it. The high heat and porous surface of the stone is what allows you to duplicate the pizzeria-style thin crust in your home.

Some pizzerias bake pizza on a pizza screen. The pizza screen is an expanded metal grid shaped in a circle. The pizza screen is lightly coated with oil then the pizza is assembled on the screen. The whole screen is placed into the preheated oven; the pizza bakes on the screen. The holes in the pizza screen allow the crust to get crispy while it is baking.

Other pizzerias bake pizza on a pizza pan. The pizza pan is lightly coated with oil then the pizza is assembled in the pan. The whole pan is placed into the preheated oven; the pizza bakes in the pan. The pan may have holes in the bottom to allow the crust to get crispy while it is baking.

Although pizza screens and pizza pans are easier to handle than sliding a pizza onto a baking stone with a pizza peel, in my opinion the texture of a crust baked on a pizza screen is not as good as that of one baked on a baking stone.

Baking Time

Baking time varies; it depends mostly on how much dough, sauce, and toppings there are to heat. The more toppings and crust, the longer it will take to bake; the less crust and fewer toppings, the less time it will take. A thin-style pizza with sparse toppings usually cooks on a baking stone in about ten to twelve minutes (or even less if there are very few toppings) while a thick-style pizza cooked in a pan may take forty to fifty minutes. An under-cooked or overcooked pizza is not desirable, so you need to know how to tell when a pizza is properly cooked.

You want to bake the pizza until the crust is nicely browned and crispy on top as well as on the bottom, but not overdone. In addition, the toppings should be heated through. The key is to bake the pizza (any kind of flat pizza) until the toppings are boiling over the entire surface of the pizza. The cheese and sauce should be bubbling slightly; in most cases, the cheese and edges of the dough will be nicely browned at this point, too. This ensures that the toppings and sauce have been heated to the right temperature. Once the toppings are bubbling, you can decide how brown you want the crust to be. Start watching the pizza closely and take it out of the oven just as it reaches the level of brownness you desire. If you cook the pizza much longer, the crust will become too hard.

Baking Pizza on a Stone

Immediately prior to putting the pizza in the oven, you need to loosen the pizza on the peel so that it will slide off easily. Holding the pizza peel by the handle, give the pizza peel a few slight shakes back and forth to shuffle and loosen the pie. Gently slide the pizza onto the stones by placing the pizza peel into the oven over the baking stone then with two or three small jerks, inch the pizza off the peel onto the stones. Hopefully, this will leave the undamaged pizza centered on the stones. Handling an uncooked pizza on a pizza peel takes practice; so do not worry if it feels awkward the first few times.

Bake for eleven to thirteen minutes; the actual baking time may vary from eight to fifteen minutes depending on the oven, but be careful not to bake too long. You want to bake the pizza so that the toppings are bubbling and the crust is nicely browned and crunchy-chewy, but not overdone.

Baking Pizza in a Pan

The pizza pan is placed in the oven on the lowest rack for a few minutes to get the pan hot and start making the crust crisp. Then the pizza is moved to the middle rack and the temperature is lowered for the rest of the baking time. The range of time is given because the temperature of different ovens can vary. Just keep an eye on the sauce and the edges of the pizza.

For a thin-style pizza, place the pizza pan in the oven on the lowest rack. Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for five minutes. Move the pizza pan to the middle rack and lower the temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for an additional ten to twenty minutes until the sauce is bubbling and the crust is lightly browned.

Serving

After removing the pizza from the oven, let it stand for a few minutes on a trivet until the cheese stops bubbling and the pizza cools slightly. This allows the toppings and cheese to set prior to cutting. Cut the pizza into manageable size slices and serve while still warm.

If you have one, serve the pizza on a perforated pan on a serving tray. The holes in the pan let steam and sauce out so that the bottom of the crust does not become soggy.

Serve the pizza as soon after cooking as possible. When cooked foods cool to room temperature, microbes begin to proliferate. The longer the wait, the greater the risk. If you plan to serve the pizza at another time or if you are unable to serve the pizza right after cooking, follow the safe food storage rules listed in the section Preparing Toppings.

Recipes

Basic Pizza Dough

Makes one fourteen to sixteen inch thin-style pizza

Basic pizza dough is the most common type of dough used in pizza. It is not too fancy or bland, it is easy to make and easy to shape. It produces a crust that tastes and crunches nicely when baked on a pizza stone, in a pizza screen, on in a pizza pan.

1 cup lukewarm tap water (105 - 115 degrees F)
1 tsp. sugar
1 pkg. (about 3/4 Tbsp.) active dry yeast (regular or quick-rise)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 1/2 to 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt (I do not recommend omitting the salt)
unbleached all-purpose flour (for kneading)

Water Temperature
- High temperatures kill yeast. When in doubt, use cooler rather than hotter water. Cool (even cold) water will not hurt the yeast; it just may slow down the rising process slightly.

Sugar
- The sugar in the dough is food for the yeast. This allows the yeast to multiply robustly and produces a slightly faster and higher rising dough. A similar amount of any sweetener can be used.

Mixing
- Pour the water in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle in the sugar and the yeast; stir gently for a few seconds (do not worry if the yeast is not completely dissolved). Let stand until foamy, about ten minutes. You should begin to see the yeast multiply; it will produce bubbles and clumps that rise to the surface of the water. Waiting for the yeast to become bubbly is not necessary if you are very familiar with yeast baking and you know your yeast is active.

Add the oil, one cup of the flour and the salt. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Add one and a half cups of flour and mix well. The dough should come together and be fairly dry; you may need to add up to an additional half-cup or so of flour if the dough is very wet or sticky.

You will notice that the amount of flour in dough makes dough soft or firm while you knead. Resist the tendency to add too much flour; it makes the dough too dense. The dough will become less sticky as you knead it.

Kneading
- Knead the dough until the dough is smooth and elastic and no lines of flour show; it should no longer feel sticky and should spring back when pressed. Shape the dough into a ball for rising.

A heavy-duty mixer or food processor works well for mixing and kneading, but you will have better success if you do the process by hand a few times so that you can know if the mixer is doing its job correctly.

Shaping
- This dough can be rolled, stretched, or hand-tossed into shape.

Basic Pizza Dough (or any dough with oil in it) has a tendency to stick to the pizza peel, so use a generous amount of flour and/or cornmeal on the peel to ensure that the dough can slide off.

Basic Pizza Sauce

Makes enough for about three pizzas fourteen to sixteen inches in size.

This is a basic sauce but do not let that deter you. The fresh taste of crushed tomatoes provides a nice tang that is mellowed just slightly by cooking it over low heat. This sauce is so easy that there is no reason to use canned or jarred sauce. Do not even think of using spaghetti sauce; you will end up with a pizza that tastes like spaghetti!

2 - 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes, 2 different brands
1 rounded tsp. dried oregano
1 rounded tsp. dried sweet basil
1 - 2 large cloves garlic, crushed with a garlic press
1 tsp. salt (optional - I always leave it out)

Mix all ingredients in a non-reactive pan (such as stainless steel, glass, or non-stick) and bring to a simmer over very low heat. Cooking the tomatoes at a low temperature helps develop a rich, subtle flavor without bringing out the acid taste of tomato paste. Maintain at a very low simmer for thirty to forty-five minutes; do not cook too fast or too long.

You can save whatever sauce you do not use in the refrigerator or freezer for the next pizza(s) you make. I store my extra sauce in eight to ten ounce portions so that one container's worth is the right amount of sauce for one pizza.

I always leave out the salt from this and most of my sauce recipes. I think it is due to the salt in most cheeses, but if I add salt to the sauce, the pizza sometimes seems too salty.

The mixture of two brands of tomatoes gives a smoother taste. Do not substitute whole tomatoes or tomato puree in this recipe and do not add any tomato paste. It is okay to use crushed tomatoes that have added tomato puree.

Basic Cheese Pizza

Makes one fourteen to sixteen inch pizza.

1 cup Basic Pizza Sauce
Basic Pizza Dough
olive oil
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
Romano cheese
Italian Herbs

Resting
- After the dough has risen, punch it down with one fist, take it out of the bowl, and knead it briefly (about one minute) without adding any flour, to release the large air bubbles. Shape it into a flat circle about one inch thick. Sandwich the dough between two layers of plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for five to ten minutes before shaping it.

Shaping
- Hand stretching is the classic method used in most pizzerias; use the technique described in the above section entitled "Preparation Techniques." Alternatively, you can roll out the pizza dough using the technique described in the preparation techniques above.

Once the dough is close to the desired size, carefully lay the dough onto the prepared pizza peel. Gently configure the dough into its final shape. (Remember not to squash the edge!)

Assembly
- Lightly brush the dough with olive oil (including the edge); then, spread an even layer of sauce over the pizza up to the edge. The layer of sauce should be just thick enough so that you do not see bare spots through the sauce, but be careful not to use too much sauce. Spread the cheese evenly on top of the sauce. Sprinkle with herbs and Romano cheese, if desired. The sauce and cheese will migrate toward the center, so you should put a little less in the center; otherwise, the cooked pizza may be soggy in the center.

Feel free to assemble and bake the pizza on a pizza screen, if you want. Many pizzerias do this, too. It makes the uncooked pizza easier to handle. The bottom of the crust will be a little less crispy than when baked directly on a stone.

Baking
- Bake for eleven to thirteen minutes; the actual baking time may vary from eight to sixteen minutes depending on the oven, but be careful not to bake too long. You want to bake the pizza so that the crust is nicely browned and crunchy-chewy, but not overdone. In addition, the toppings should be heated through; the cheese and sauce should be bubbling slightly (it will almost look like it is boiling) over the whole surface of the pizza. This ensures that the toppings and sauce have been heated to the right temperature.