Saturday, January 8, 2022

Pizza Perfection

 

Round 1, Pizza 1

My husband loves pizza and rarely complains about any style crust.   On the other hand, I am a total crust snob.  Inspired by a TV show where they were making Naples style pizza, I started researching. 

Round 1, pizza 2

I read several articles on Cold Fermented Pizza Dough.   Here's the link to the recipe and directions that I mostly followed (I used 4g yeast).  After reading several articles, one secret is the timing.   The dough must be made 3-5 days before use.  I did Round 1 (pictures above) on day 3, round 2 (pictures below) on day 4. 

Secret # 2 is heat.  Pizza ovens are 900 F.  My oven maxes out at 550.  I followed suggestions and bought a pizza stone, bringing it to heat from a cold oven.  Middle rack  (some instructions say top rack).  I tried using the broiler on round 1, but it turned off the oven heat, so didn't do that round 2

Minute 6 of baking pizza 1 of round 2 I heard a bang.  The pizza stone broke. 


Undeterred, here's the hubby's pizza, perfect at 7 minutes.  He added pineapple after the photo.

I probably overloaded the cheese by Neapolitan standards.  Which prevented as much rise in the dough at the center.  
By the 4th pizza, I did get some bubbles in the center.
Amazing bubbles on the edges. 



I also found that it helped to roll out the crusts as much as they would go without bouncing back to a smaller size.   Then I let them sit for 10 minutes and rolled again, which increased the size and thinned out the crust. 

Fortunately, the broken pizza stone was still big enough for the mini pizzas. 
Round 2, Pizza 2 was everything I'd hoped for.  Pesto & fresh basil with ham & fresh mozzarella. 
YUMMY!



Four 9 inch pizzas for under $10.


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