Successful homemade pizza at last
Jul. 27th, 2008 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
I have FINALLY made decent homemade pizza, YAY. (Coming on the tail of my first free-form sourdough loaf attempt, which was kind of a failure. Sigh.) I didn't take a picture of it, because it honestly looked like crap (I suck at shaping pizza dough ... and most other doughs), but for the first time ever the crust was thin and tasted more like pizza instead of a thick, bread-like substance. Woot! All this sourdough knowledge has finally come in handy. There are a number of things that I was doing wrong before, but I don't suppose it's all that interesting to talk about. So instead I will just give the recipe/method for what I used, which I adapted from a simple recipe I found online, and a not-so-simple recipe from my new book The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart.
This all came about because I had leftover ripe sourdough starter that I didn't know what to do with. So I deliberately used a recipe that used sourdough starter instead of anything that required the addition of active dry/instant yeast. The online recipes seemed too simplistic (like the other recipes I've tried in the past that were failures) while the recipe from the book didn't use sourdough starter at all. So I just kind of combined the two to make them work for my purposes.
Sourdough Pizza Crust
Ingredients:
- About 2 cups ripe sourdough starter (100% hydration), cold
- About 2 cups bread flour
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp salt
* If you can, weigh the ingredients and put the same amount of flour as you have starter. Adjust the amount of salt and oil accordingly.
Method:
1. Mix all of the ingredients together in an electric mixer with the dough hook attachment for 5-7 minutes, until the dough is homogeneous and smooth (it will be sticky but not too wet).
2. Divide dough into 6-oz portions (every 6-oz portion will make a 9-12" pizza) or as big/small as you prefer. Discard leftover dough or make into grissini.
3. Lightly dust each portion. Gently shape into a ball. (At this point you can freeze them by lightly oiling each ball and putting them individually into freezer bags. Defrost the day before you intend to make the pizza.) Lightly oil dough balls and put them on a baking sheet (or smaller container depending on how many balls of dough you have). Cover and refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours.
4. Two hours before you plan to make the pizza, take the dough out of the fridge. Lightly flour your hands and press the dough down to a disc to about 1/2" inch thick and 5 inches in diameter. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and proof (leave it alone) for 2 hours.
5. About 45 minutes before you plan to bake the pizza, place a pizza stone on a lower third rack oven the oven and preheat to 500°F or as high as your oven will let you go (the higher the better, but most home ovens cap at 500 or 550).
6. After the 2-hour proof, dust your hands, front and back, with flour and put the disc of dough over your knuckles, using them to gently rotate and stretch the dough. If you're brave or feel comfortable, toss the pizza as the professionals do! The gluten should be relaxed (and yet developed enough) for you to be able to stretch it easily and it can get fairly thin without tearing. If it does tear, DO NOT RESHAPE (I made this mistake -- doing so will almost certainly make the dough too springy and "tough" and you'll have to wait another 5-20 minutes for the gluten to relax so you can try again). Simply pinch the hole closed with dough on either side.
7. When you have the dough shaped how you like it, transfer it to a peel. I use SuperPeel, but if you have a regular peel, dust it with semolina first. Top the pizza with sauce, cheese, and your choice of toppings (try not to overload, especially if it's thin crust). For my pizza, I used (in this order): Trader Joe's pizza sauce, basil leaves from my new herb plant, mozzarella cheese for melty goodness, and a 4-cheese blend of parmesan, fontina, soft provolone, and asiago.
8. When the pizza is ready for the oven, sprinkle some semolina flour on the hot pizza stone to make sure that the pizza will slide easily on (and more importantly, off). Using the peel, quickly slide the pizza onto the stone -- don't be too hesitant or it will become messy.
9. Bake for 5-8 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and (and brown, in my case -- mmm) and the crust is golden. Use a peel to take the pizza off the stone (should be easy with the semolina base) and wait a few minutes for the cheese to set a bit before slicing.
I also had a bit of leftover starter this morning from feeding, and I'm going to make sourdough English muffins! Will let you know how those turn out.
This all came about because I had leftover ripe sourdough starter that I didn't know what to do with. So I deliberately used a recipe that used sourdough starter instead of anything that required the addition of active dry/instant yeast. The online recipes seemed too simplistic (like the other recipes I've tried in the past that were failures) while the recipe from the book didn't use sourdough starter at all. So I just kind of combined the two to make them work for my purposes.
Sourdough Pizza Crust
Ingredients:
- About 2 cups ripe sourdough starter (100% hydration), cold
- About 2 cups bread flour
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp salt
* If you can, weigh the ingredients and put the same amount of flour as you have starter. Adjust the amount of salt and oil accordingly.
Method:
1. Mix all of the ingredients together in an electric mixer with the dough hook attachment for 5-7 minutes, until the dough is homogeneous and smooth (it will be sticky but not too wet).
2. Divide dough into 6-oz portions (every 6-oz portion will make a 9-12" pizza) or as big/small as you prefer. Discard leftover dough or make into grissini.
3. Lightly dust each portion. Gently shape into a ball. (At this point you can freeze them by lightly oiling each ball and putting them individually into freezer bags. Defrost the day before you intend to make the pizza.) Lightly oil dough balls and put them on a baking sheet (or smaller container depending on how many balls of dough you have). Cover and refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours.
4. Two hours before you plan to make the pizza, take the dough out of the fridge. Lightly flour your hands and press the dough down to a disc to about 1/2" inch thick and 5 inches in diameter. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and proof (leave it alone) for 2 hours.
5. About 45 minutes before you plan to bake the pizza, place a pizza stone on a lower third rack oven the oven and preheat to 500°F or as high as your oven will let you go (the higher the better, but most home ovens cap at 500 or 550).
6. After the 2-hour proof, dust your hands, front and back, with flour and put the disc of dough over your knuckles, using them to gently rotate and stretch the dough. If you're brave or feel comfortable, toss the pizza as the professionals do! The gluten should be relaxed (and yet developed enough) for you to be able to stretch it easily and it can get fairly thin without tearing. If it does tear, DO NOT RESHAPE (I made this mistake -- doing so will almost certainly make the dough too springy and "tough" and you'll have to wait another 5-20 minutes for the gluten to relax so you can try again). Simply pinch the hole closed with dough on either side.
7. When you have the dough shaped how you like it, transfer it to a peel. I use SuperPeel, but if you have a regular peel, dust it with semolina first. Top the pizza with sauce, cheese, and your choice of toppings (try not to overload, especially if it's thin crust). For my pizza, I used (in this order): Trader Joe's pizza sauce, basil leaves from my new herb plant, mozzarella cheese for melty goodness, and a 4-cheese blend of parmesan, fontina, soft provolone, and asiago.
8. When the pizza is ready for the oven, sprinkle some semolina flour on the hot pizza stone to make sure that the pizza will slide easily on (and more importantly, off). Using the peel, quickly slide the pizza onto the stone -- don't be too hesitant or it will become messy.
9. Bake for 5-8 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and (and brown, in my case -- mmm) and the crust is golden. Use a peel to take the pizza off the stone (should be easy with the semolina base) and wait a few minutes for the cheese to set a bit before slicing.
I also had a bit of leftover starter this morning from feeding, and I'm going to make sourdough English muffins! Will let you know how those turn out.
