There's nothing quite like home made pizza, if you plan ahead a bit. While I don't have the sort of oven you really need to get good pizza (not too many folks have a coal burning or beehive wood oven) I do know how to make a good dough. With a heavy-duty stand mixer, it's trivial--throw in all the ingredients (3C flour, 1C water, .25C oil, 1 t salt, 1 t yeast) let it knead with the bread hook until it's a nice consistency (10 minutes or so), then throw the dough in the refrigerator over night. The cold slow rise gives a really nice texture to the dough, which is really important.
Then pop it into a 425 degree oven with stuff on top, cook until done, then enjoy. Yum!
Posted by Dan at March 7, 2003 06:57 PM | TrackBack (0)When you put the pie in the oven do lay the dough on top of a brick, a baking sheet, or does an oven rack do the trick? I haven't been able to get the consistancy of the dough in home-cooked pizza to be anything less than, well, bad ;-) When I was in college at UW in Washington state, I cooked at Pagliacci's. Bad management aside, it was really good pizza. I haven't been able to replicate the crust that a brick oven puts out.
-- dug
Posted by: Douglas Hunter at March 15, 2003 06:21 PMGenerally I just throw it on a lightly oiled baking sheet, but that's because I have an electric oven and fire bricks just don't work out well. (Yeah, I know, I could throw them on the bottom rack, but...) I prefer a chewier crust, so it's OK and works out. A really high heat, 500 if your pans can manage it, and letting the dough rise as long as possible, get the best crust.
Never going to duplicate a wood or coal fired oven at home (well, short of cooking on top of a wood stove) but you can still manage a pretty good pizza.
Posted by: Dan at March 15, 2003 06:37 PM