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The Pizza Making thread 
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Search is a bit rubbish so putting stuff here to make my life easier.
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veato's pizza base recipe

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Quick pizza base (8)
800g white flour (I use 00 when I have it but strong white is recommended)
200g fine semolina
14g instant (quick) yeast i.e. 2 x sachets
1tbsp caster sugar
650ml warm water
1 tablespoon salt.
Mix it, kneed it, let it rise for an hour, knock it back, make 8 balls, rest for 15 minutes, roll/stretch.
Can be kept in the fridge for the day after or frozen for use another day.



cloaked_wolf wrote:
veato wrote:
Quick pizza base...

So I tried this recipe today, used a quarter of the amounts to make two bases. Made multiple mistakes.

Firstly, whilst I quartered the quantities for flour, water and semolina, I forgot to do it for the yeast, sugar and salt. Secondly, whilst I was able to get semolina, it was coarse rather than fine. Made two balls and left them to rise.

I took them out of the fridge but got caught up with other stuff so whilst the first ball rolled out okay, I couldn't transfer it to the pizza tray once I'd loaded the toppings on. Ended up making a calzone (brushing the dough with garlic butter) which was delicious. For the second ball, I returned it into the fridge and as soon as I rolled it out, I stuck it on the pizza tray. It looks okay. Just waiting for the missus to come home to try it.



cloaked_wolf wrote:
Third attempt today (after yesterday's aborted plan due to power cut). We tried a stuffed crust cooked on a pizza tray (holes in base) and a plain one on a heavy baking tray. Brushed a little olive oil on the baking tray to prevent sticking. Didn't do this for the pizza tray one. Both cooked for same amount of time.

The pizza tray one - the base was a little undercooked in the centre. Thin'n'soft. The baking tray one was perfect. Crisp base.

Just need to get the seasoning and flavours right.


cloaked_wolf wrote:
The missus and I made pizza today. Used veato's basic recipe but added in 2tbsp of milk powder. Heard it results in Pizza Hut style base. Mixed the yeast, sugar, salt and water first, let it proof before adding the bread flour/semolina/milk powder through a sieve.

The fail was when I asked the missus to thicken to pizza sauce (from a jar!) using tomato puree. For some reason, she added water to the contents of two jars. Consequently, there was water seeping out from the edges of cheese and the cheese hadn't really melted into the toppings.

The base itself was reminiscent of pizza hut but not quite there. Needs more garlic salt on the crust. But we did successfully make a stuffed crust.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:11 am
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I couldn't find the above posts so I ended up using a Pizza Hut dough recipe from the internet (it was american based so everything was in cups).

I think this was the recipe I followed:

http://www.food.com/recipe/pizza-hut-or ... izza-91827

Mistake #1 - didn't need the dough for the requisite 10 mins
Mistake #2 - should have used a bit more flour. The dough was way too sticky after being left to rise
Mistake #3 - should have rolled the dough on to the pizza tray before leaving to rise

Frustratingly, the bases of the pizzas are still underdone compared to the top. By the time the bottom is done, the cheese has almost browned over completely ie burnt.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:15 am
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cloaked_wolf wrote:
the bases of the pizzas are still underdone compared to the top


This is why I like the cast iron pan method as it ensures the base is cooked.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 11:15 am
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Yup did toy with the idea. But our oven and grill are electric. Trying to make cheese-on-toast is a nightmare and I've resorted to making the American version using a frying pan. Any dish with cheese on top and whacked under the electric grill results in the cheese sort of mutating without browning or bubbling as you'd expect from a gas grill.

I need to stick to a single recipe but change cooking methods now. I think I'll look at pizza stones again. The other suggestion swmbo had was to stick the base alone into the oven for a few mins before removing and adding the sauce, cheese and toppings.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 1:08 pm
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Personally I don't use semolina in pizza, but that's a matter of preference.

My general advice would be as follows:

The oven needs to be pre-heated to its maximum temperature (normally 220C +). A proper pizza oven gets even hotter; I've seen Italian pizza ovens cook a pizza in about 3-4 minutes from fresh.

Make sure whatever you are putting the pizza on for cooking has also been pre-heated. A pizza stone really is the best thing you can use. If you put it into the oven when you first turn it on, everything should be properly hot after about 15 minutes.

I tend to make the pizza on greaseproof paper, that way it can be very quickly moved onto the hot stone and back into the over without the two losing too much temperature. Also try and get the base as thin as possible, none of this deep-pan nonsense.

I've experienced efforts where people have tried par-cooking the base first and they've always been universally awful, they seem to go tough and chewy.

Make sure you don't put too much stuff on top, otherwise that can also inhibit the cooking process.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 1:15 pm
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I think a proper pizza oven gets up to somewhere in the 300 - 400C range (and probably nearer the upper end of that range) whereas most domestic ovens top out around the 250C mark so yeah, it's not going to be quite the same.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 3:19 pm
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jonlumb wrote:
Personally I don't use semolina in pizza, but that's a matter of preference.

I've found it to make the pizza taste more akin to what I'd get from a pizzeria.

jonlumb wrote:
A pizza stone really is the best thing you can use. If you put it into the oven when you first turn it on, everything should be properly hot after about 15 minutes.

I was looking at a pizza stone and peel. There was a recommendation on this forum but can't find it due to search limitations.

jonlumb wrote:
try and get the base as thin as possible, none of this deep-pan nonsense.

As a kid, I used to prefer deep pan. Loved the bready dough. But nowadays much prefer a thin crust

jonlumb wrote:
I've experienced efforts where people have tried par-cooking the base first and they've always been universally awful, they seem to go tough and chewy.

Sounds disappointing. We might still give it a go if we don't get a pizza stone before we make our next pizza.

jonlumb wrote:
Make sure you don't put too much stuff on top, otherwise that can also inhibit the cooking process.

Yup. Told swmbo this time to use fewer toppings. Did work out better in terms of taste.


davrosG5 wrote:
I think a proper pizza oven gets up to somewhere in the 300 - 400C range (and probably nearer the upper end of that range) whereas most domestic ovens top out around the 250C mark so yeah, it's not going to be quite the same.

Frustratingly, it's not something that's easy to find out when looking online at ovens. You'd have thought it'd be obvious. Our electric oven maxes out at 230*C. I'd like to think when we update our kitchen and upgrade the oven that it'll be something that gets close to pizza oven temps. I know in terms of practicality (and swmbo) that this will be overridden.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 3:34 pm
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cloaked_wolf wrote:
davrosG5 wrote:
I think a proper pizza oven gets up to somewhere in the 300 - 400C range (and probably nearer the upper end of that range) whereas most domestic ovens top out around the 250C mark so yeah, it's not going to be quite the same.

Frustratingly, it's not something that's easy to find out when looking online at ovens. You'd have thought it'd be obvious. Our electric oven maxes out at 230*C. I'd like to think when we update our kitchen and upgrade the oven that it'll be something that gets close to pizza oven temps. I know in terms of practicality (and swmbo) that this will be overridden.

It's probably to do with insulation - either in the appliance itself or that would be required to safely fit it in somewhere that's the problem. It's presumably a lot easier to insulate something for 230 - 250C than it is for 350 - 400C.
The ovens they use on things like Saturday Kitchen are made by a company called Wolf. It looks like they have a dedicated 'stone' setting and go up to 290C. Their website is rather cagey on the prices though so I suspect they aren't going to be cheap.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 4:26 pm
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davrosG5 wrote:
Their website is rather cagey on the prices though so I suspect they aren't going to be cheap.


Well John Lewis has some Wolf ovens. Cost is £12-18k.

A bit out of my price range. :oops:

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 4:36 pm
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Good grief. That's way more than I was expecting.
Another of those "if you have to ask the price you can't afford it" things.

Edit:
On inspection, the stuff JL are listing are all range cookers rather than just ovens. Still bloody expensive though.

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Fri Sep 23, 2016 5:13 pm
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Sod the expensive ovens, I'd like to build my own brick pizza oven in the garden. A plinth like this and a few fire bricks... job done! :D

A book I'd recommend is Artisan Pizza by Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo (ISBN 978-0-85783-217-7). It shows the methods and recipes to make Franco Manca's sourdough pizza without the benefit of a wood-burning oven. The three methods in the book are pizza stone, iron pan and baking tray with dough recipes to suit although all the pizzas in the book are made using the iron pan method. The theory being that domestic ovens fail to reach a temperature high enough for a stone to be worthwhile although I found I got decent results anyway.

I do use the iron pan method now though and whilst my grill is pants (electric) it's good enough. You can go pan to oven also if you don't have a grill.

My (now broken) pizza stone
https://www.procook.co.uk/product/procook-pizza-stone-38cm-15in?gclid=CjwKEAjwjqO_BRDribyJpc_mzHgSJABdnsFWIv6w_AmASOD7_LXDCesfd-dNDeRwpvJDcupDfmGx2hoC6qnw_wcB

My peel
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pizza-Peel-Paddle-Lifter-Consumables/dp/B01KVDTXTE/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1474915847&sr=8-4&keywords=pizza+peel

My pan
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vintage-Gourmet-TM-Pre-Seasoned-Tortillas/dp/B00V29TT8M/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1474915889&sr=8-12&keywords=pizza+pan

I'm not saying these items are the best but they did the job for me and are reasonably priced.

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Mon Sep 26, 2016 6:53 pm
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Thanks veato. That's the same stone I saw on Amazon IIRC but had issues with it breaking/splitting. Similar if not the same paddle. Shame the handle isn't foldable/removable for easy storage. Will look at the cast iron pan method. I remember going to a local independent fast food restaurant and they used a metal dish to hold the pizza whilst it moved along a conveyor belt under some sort of oven.

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Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:22 pm
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The stones tend to crack due to rapid heat changes so always start with it in a cold oven and let it cool back down in the oven afterwards.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

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Mon Sep 26, 2016 9:04 pm
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We made pizzas again today. I tried something different - used more flour instead of adding semolina and used a third of veato's quantities to make two pizzas. Unfortunately the dough didn't rise, most likely because it's too cold in the kitchen now. Consequently the base was more thin'n'crispy than bready. Still tasted good and the base was cooked.

Gonna try and get my hands on a cast iron pan for the pizza.

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Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:42 pm
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Dough can rise at lower temps - even in the fridge! - it just takes a lot longer. One of the recipes in the book I've mentioed before IIRC is left 24 hours to rise.

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Fri Nov 04, 2016 9:55 am
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