The Pizza Thread

[Mr. Dazzle]

Pineapple!

Burn the heathen.

[weeksy]

Pineapple!

Burn the heathen.

He's 12, it's allowed

[Mr. Dazzle]

Mrs. D likes double pineapple on hers and nothing else.

I do it for her, but I wouldn't do it for anyone else.

[mangocrazy]

Been doing homemade pizza for several years now, using various types of flour and with mixed results. Never got the hang of pizza stretching so just rolled it out with a rolling pin, which I know is as wrong as wrong can be...

But I've been saved by the power of the Lord and have repented. No more shall a rolling pin come near my dough. I've also bought a 3kg bag of 'Pizza and Ciabatta' flour from Gilchester Organics and will give that a proper crack. Anyone else used that? Anyway, I've got 3kg of it to burn through so it's immaterial...

Lastly, is it OK to freeze dough for use at a future time? Much as I love pizza I can't face it for 3 or 4 nights on the trot. Would it be OK to freeze the unused dough balls after they've risen for a couple of hours and after you've chopped them up into individual portions? That would seem the obvious time for such a move.

And pineapple on pizza is cool. So sue me.

[weeksy]

I'll let you know tomorrow. We froze sone about 10 says ago. It's pizza night tomorrow

[KungFooBob]

I'll be 43 in April. I've never eaten pizza.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I used to have left over dough when I made it in the mixer with a kneading attachment. Said attachment works better when the bowl is fuller, hence the left over dough.

Nowadays though I do a sourdough recipe with no kneading. It takes about 48 hours all in (more like 60 if you've not done it for a while) but there's no kneading. Thus it's easy just to make the quantity you require.

[Silly Car]

I often use frozen dough balls from my local Italian wholesalers, not as refined as home made but great for same day pizzas. At around 30p each (IIRC), they are a good compromise and make lovely bread

[Mr. Dazzle]

If you're struggling to throw them BTW it's likely because you've not balled the dough the right way. You can't really just grab a handfull of dough and throw it into a Pizza...well you can, but it will be really hard to do! Once you've cracked it throwing them is generally pretty straightforward, both because the dough is much stronger but also much less sticky.

You need to ball the dough up well in advance, with sourdough you're talking 24hr in advance. The acid test for me is poking the dough. If jts worked properly you should be able to poke the dough ball with your finger almost all the way through and it should still spring back to its original shape immediately.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I used our oven for the first time this year last night. Over the winter it tends to get a bit soggy cause all the insulation materials are quote porous, so I usually have a few fires in spring before actually using it in anger.

Its clearly nice and dry now though cause it got to "crazy hot" in no time. I singed the hair off the back of my hand taking this photo. The key test is whether the walls of the oven are white, when you first fire it up they get all blackned with soot, when they're hot enough the soot will burn off and reveal the white surface again. Soot won't burn below about 500 centigrade, which tells you how toasty it is in there.



When it's really hot the wood burns down to very little ash in no time, at which point you just brush it to the back (with a long handle brush!) and away you go....



That photo is about 30s into the cook with about a minute left to go.

[Asian Boss]

Stop being so tight and get a proper stuffed crust one from Pizza Hut, cooked in a proper oven. Not that thin crap covered in ash.

[Silly Car]

Treated myself to a Gozney dome in the 20% off summer sale, currently installed on a pallet on top of some saw horses. It is both gas and wood fired. I’ve also seen some people using charcoal and smoking in them but you need the door for that and for baking.

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I made some dough this morning but it was under proofed when I used it, mainly because the kitchen remains cool (it is in the basement) even on the hottest days, next time I’ll use a bit more yeast (0.8g of dried) to force it along a bit.

The stone base in the oven was a touch under optimum temperature but that gave me more time to practice with the turning peel.

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Onwards and upwards!

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Ideally the crust should have puffed up some more but that’ll come with practice.

Dough was 62% hydration using Caputo Red 00 flour from Morrisons of all places. I cheated with a tin of Mutti pizza sauce, supermarket grated mozzarella but added some grated Parmesan as well. Dough recipe was from Peddling Pizza

[Noggin]

Despite your comments about under proving/temperature, that looks bloody lovely (but I get that you want it 'right' - but, first effort = awesome )

So much so that I thought to myself - I'll have space outside at the new place . . . . . .

Sadly, my go to pizza is the Dr Oetekar frozen from the supermarket, so I can't justify buying such an expensive oven


But, I will have to have a good look for something similar but less for the spring (or even winter cos it won't snow so much down there ) cos I'm proper jealous

[Silly Car]

Tonight was tikka chicken on naan flatbreads, artistically adorned with spinach leaves, minted yoghurt and mango chutney.

The naan were supposed to be naan bread but I over stretched them so just cooked them out on a preheated cast iron Tawa heated in the pizza oven:

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750g Diced chicken, 150g / 3-4 tablespoons of Greek yoghurt and 3-4 Matt Coopers tikka spice blend*, mix together, leave for a few hours before roasting in a cast iron trivet at 350°C in the oven until cooked through

Or 4 heaped teaspoons of Tandoori Masala, 1 heaped teaspoon of each of Kashmiri chilli powder, ground coriander, ground cumin, garlic powder, paprika, ground ginger, dried mint, big pinch of dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi), level teaspoon of salt and a good slug of lemon juice.

Two naans, 75ml milk, 5g salt, 3G sugar, 1-2g dried yeast, 150g strong bread flour, 50g yoghurt. Mix everything together then knead until smooth ball of dough is formed*, cover and leave to prove for a couple of hours, separate into two ball, knead briefly before forming into a tight ball, leave to prove again until needed. Roll out and cook on preheated Tawa or frying pan, grilling top to brown bubbles which form, then brush with ghee. Mine took seconds in the pizza oven as I stretched them out to 12” diameter

* I’ve read in a number of pizza sources to kneed to temperature (23-24°C) as that gets the yeast working which helps strengthen the gluten, I got the dough to around 19°C before putting a cling film covered bowl in my air frying oven on 30°C dehydration mode for an hour and leaving for a further hour, is did the same on the second prove.

[MrLongbeard]

750g Diced chicken,

How flippin' big am these pizza's!!!!!!!!!!

[Cousin Jack]

I'll be 43 in April. I've never eaten pizza.

I know a bloke who is still a virgin at a similar age.

I feel sorry for both of you.

[Silly Car]

750g Diced chicken,

How flippin' big am these pizza's!!!!!!!!!!

Haha, there is only 250g of raw ingredients on those flatbreads, minus the couple of chef’s perks that got consumed along the way

[KungFooBob]

I'll be 43 in April. I've never eaten pizza.

I know a bloke who is still a virgin at a similar age.

I feel sorry for both of you.

This thread is OLD!

I'm 47 now.

I still don't eat pizza.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I'll be 43 in April. I've never eaten pizza.

I know a bloke who is still a virgin at a similar age.

I feel sorry for both of you.

I feel more sorry for bob

[Sunny]

I'll be 43 in April. I've never eaten pizza.

I know a bloke who is still a virgin at a similar age.

I feel sorry for both of you.

This thread is OLD!

I'm 47 now.

I still don't eat pizza.

I really liked you. Right up until now.

Have you literally never tried it?