Pizza Bases

[JustMeHere]

Quick homemade thin pizza crust (30 minutes + baking time):

Use 00 flour (or bread flour, or even white flour)  you want to mix it at about 60%.  When baking flour we use WEIGHT and not VOLUME. 

165 grams of flour
100 grams of water

5 grams of yeast
5 grams of sugar

5 grams of salt
5 grams of olive oil

The yeast, sugar, salt, and olive oil are probably not necessary, but I use them anyway.

Prep your toppins (not in the scope of this post) and start preheating your oven to its max temp.  Shred your cheese now.
You will need a good sized round pizza baking sheet,  I don't use a stone.  I still get good results.  It doesn't really need to be round, but it needs one "flat" surface.

1) Weigh the water out into a bowl.  Use a scale and measure weight.  You want 100g.  Be accurate with this measurement.
2) Add the sugar.  About 5 grams.  Stir the water gently until all sugar is dissolved.
3) Add the yeast.  About 5 grams again.  Also stir this gently.  Wait about 5 minutes for yeast to activate.
4) Add the olive oil.  About 5 grams.  This is for flavor only.  It can make it harder for the next step.
5) Add the flour and  knead it for about 7 minutes in a stand mixer (or by hand, but I can't help you there.  Get the cheap stand mixer).

The dough at this point should have a very smooth surface and be fairly "thick"  It should want to stick to itself more than anything else.

Form up a dough ball.  Be sure to close the bottom off well by a squeezing twisting motion.  Allow the dough ball to rest for about 10 minutes.  It should be covered with plastic, an inverted bowl, or something.

Take your cookie sheet and flip it over.  You will be cooking your pizza on the "bottom of the cookie sheet".   Put a light coat of olive oil on the surface you will use for baking.
Using a dusting of flour, take a rolling pin and roll the flour out into about 12 inches.  The reason you want flip over the cookie sheet is it makes it much easier to roll the dough with the rolling pin.  The dough should be about 1/8th inch thick.

You oven should be just about ready. 

Put your sauce on the dough.  Don't add toppings or cheese yet. 

If you're using an analogue oven, turn the dial just enough to get the oven to "cycle."  If using a digital oven, maybe start it at 455F and bump it to 500F just before this step.  The idea is to get the element to turn on.

(This step should happen right around the 30 minute mark)

Put the pizza dough on the bottom shelf of your oven as close to the bottom element as possible.  Heat the pizza for 5-7 minutes.  You're just trying to get the crust to cook and trying to cook off some of the extra moisture from the sauce.

Remove from the oven, and add the rest of your toppings.  Make sure to have them ready before this step.  (You should not be shedding your cheese now, because you should have done it earlier.)  You want to get this step one in a minute or two. 

Put the pizza back into the oven.  This time put it on the middle rack.  Another 5-7 minutes should do the trick (maybe 10 minutes sometimes).  Watch the cheese.  When it starts to boil in the middle, it's ready.  Be careful not to burn the crust.  A good wide spatula is recommended for scraping the pizza crust from the cookie sheet.

I like to use this page for the ratio calculation.  It also lets you calculate the poolish (or starter, called sourdough on the page):  https://thebaker.science/en/hydration-calculator/

[Halcyon]

I've been using a pizza steel instead of a stone.  the main thing it seems to do is make the bottom of the pizza crisper faster.

Where did you buy yours from? Dedicated pizza steels are expensive, because of the hipster value, even though the actual materials are cheap.

[Psi]

I didn't actually buy it myself, I asked someone to get me one for xmas/bday.

[beanflying]

I have a stone base but for domestic ovens I prefer the non stick Plates with holes in them for ease of use and cleanup. Not a totally uniform crunchy base but just a better compromise for me at least.

[Psi]

The pizza stone, and especially the pizza steel, fix a problem I tend to get if I don't use them.
When the pizza base is perfectly cooked it's not strong enough to pickup a slice without it bending over and toppings falling off.  But if i cook the pizza longer or higher temp and make it strong enough to hold a slice then it's overcooked inside.

Using the pizza steel cooks the surface touching it a lot faster and forms a nice crust that holds it all together.

[vk3em]

IMO, a pizza steel is the key to getting decent pizza bases in a residential domestic oven.

I was practising TIG welding at the time, so I welded up two sheets of 6mm mild steel into a 12mm plate that fits the oven shelf. It's bloody heavy, and I would go for an 8mm plate if buying a new piece from a steel merchant. You want to make sure it is mild steel, not stainless. Stainless reflects heat so it not good for this application. If your steel comes with complementary rust, you can remove that with some scotch brite or steel wool. Don't remove the mill scale, which is hard, greyish oxide layer on the plate. The mill scale is your friend, will help prevent further rust, and is non stick, and non toxic.

Each oven is different, and my Westinghouse oven has an analog temperature control dial. I experimented with placing the steel at different locations in the oven, and ended up at the top shelf. Experimentation was required to find the right setting on the dial, where the temp control was not linear nor did it max out if you maxed the dial. 250 deg C was the last annotated temp of the front panel, and I found a setting of 280 deg (estimated) gave a plate temp of 305 deg C after 1 hour of pre-heating. Further increase of the dial resulted in reduced temperature, which is not what I expected.

Using a slow fermented pizza dough with 70% hydration, it takes about 6 minutes in total to cook the pizza. 4 minutes on pizza oven mode, 2 minutes on grill mode. We let the oven and plate recover for 10 minutes before baking the next pizza. Enough time to enjoy a glass of wine and talk shit.

Pizza Stones are not suitable at these temperatures. Stone is ideal for wood fired ovens where the temperature is around 400 deg C. At 280 deg C to 300 deg C, the stone is too slow in conducting heat. The pizza steel has a better thermal conduction characteristic at these temps, so the bottom is covered in nice "leopard spots" with a fully cooked base, and top.

My tips:
- Try and find Carputo Red 00 Pizza Flour. It has the best characteristics for a good base.
- Slow fermentation helps : Typically I used 2g yeast for 1 kg of flour @ 70% hydration, 2 hour bulk proof, then into fridge for 24-72 hours. Remove, shape into 250 g balls, and proof again for 4 hours at 25 deg C.
- Don't overload your pizza, and avoid wet ingredients like fresh capsicum
- 70% hydration can be difficult to shape and handle, so at the end of proofing your balls, put them back into the fridge. As they chill down, they become less sticky, and easier to handle, and still cooking up really well.

Cheers
Luke
 

[Halcyon]

I have a stone base but for domestic ovens I prefer the non stick Plates with holes in them for ease of use and cleanup. Not a totally uniform crunchy base but just a better compromise for me at least.

I *did* have two ceramic pizza stones, but both cracked last week (weirdly in almost identical places with the same curve) after I placed pizza on them. I imagine the temperature differential between the hot stones and cold pizza/pan was just too much.

I was actually making these, which turned out VERY well:

[ttx450]

Small pie...

[ttx450]

Usual.. pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives.

[coppercone2]

Does anyone use the bread machine to make pizza dough?

I was using a dough hook. Its alright. But I found something else

if you use the auto sifter scale to sift flour directly into a bread machine cup, and set the bread machine to dough, it makes a nice dough.

I made a pan pizza with this. Its pretty good. I like how it gets rid of the step of letting it rise in an oiled bowl. Also no monitoring like the dough hook. Only one dough transfer onto a floured board. Maybe you can even stretch it in the pan if you make the dough right, mine was a bit wet so I had to flour the bottom . I was able to just roll it down into close the right shape with a roller, so only minimum interaction was needed with the dough by hand to make it fit in the pan.

I don't like the order of the ingrediants though, because the bread machine wants water on the bottom, so you can't weigh your water in the transfer thing because the flour will stick, so you still need to weigh that seperately. But fortunately its just water so you don't need to rinse anything.

So the only measuring tool you need to measure with something you clean after is the oil spoon, and the auto sifter, but that thing improves the quality so much its worth it (put yeast, sugar, salt through it no problem).


IDK if its good enough for a stone pie, the hook might be better, but for a pan pizza... more then good enough

trick I found is to separtate the dough from the edge of the oiled pan and pour extra oil around the perimieter of the pizza like a moat. Came right out of a stainless steel pan with a spatula no problem

I think the bread machine dough was more sticky though, with the dough hook you add more flour to get it right on the hook, with the machine IMO better to let it over hydrate then just put some flour on it after.. nice texture anyway IMO


the stone cooked pizza is less oily but its stressful because you need to assemble it and transfer it quickly to avoid peel problems, and holes are a big deal. with a pan pizza you can load on the sauce and cheese and if there is a hole you can patch it up after its transfered and it will hold, the repair on a stone pizza is perilous.

also get the dough scraper tool and a pizza peel. but i love the auto sifter because I hate measuring powders.

I need some kind of precision oiler too, so I don't need to wash oil spoons.

actually since i wash the sifter every time, I can probobly weigh the water so long I wait like a good 20 minutes to make sure most of it drips off/evaporate. let it warm up to room temp too because its filtered usually from the tap.

[coppercone2]

food processor works too. But you still need to proof it in a oiled bowl. I think the bread machine is better because it has a heater.

bread machine pizza tasted better then food processor pizza, the crust was less stiff I think,.

[beanflying]

Mix it by hand if you don't own a proper mixer and dough hook. I taught a mate of mine that way a month or so back and it worked out great. Unlike say Pita or some flatbreads you really don't want to overwork the dough to avoid it getting chewy and tough so a bread maker is not ideal and a food processor NEVER.

So you want the dough to come together and be smooth then STOP. Place it in your oiled bowl to prove then knock back and reprove then use it.

[coppercone2]

The food processor.. you just check on it a few times while working... the pizza was fine

I think you would need to really work hard to over knead the dough

IMO unwarrented fear! maybe a conspiracy by pizza makers to retain employment.

I need to see how you check the dough via tests to see if there really is some kind of critical problem.

its fast though. That makes dough super fast. Way faster then bread machine or dough hook. I would call it nearly instant in comparison.



For flat bread, I would use little water (low hydration). High hydration = high steam = fluffy. aT LEAST that is a big part of it.


I still like the bread machine the most. The food processor maybe you can get it faster but it really less automated. the bread machine is wizardy if combined with auto hopper





The mistake made with the food processor pizza was stainless steel baking dish, that is meant for BBQ. I feel like comparative studies done by me show that black steel is way superior to polished stainless for frying (with the exception being broiling meat / vegetables, i.e. sous vide post processing), you get more direct infrared and less heating from the pan. If you really wanna 'broil' it with infrared.

Baking on black rusting steel (mild steel?) seems to offer a superior crust when baking. I am waiting on some black steel pizza pans for this purpose, as an alternative to stone pizza.


I also wanna try bread machine french baguette (with post work done).

With simple mayonaise breaded chicken, I had poor results on stainless steel when the recpie works fine with black/dark pans OK in the oven. But I see the test kitchen video broils the pizza.


i also wonder WTF a black pizza stone would do. I need a big ass boron nitride or whatever carbide tank armor segment I guess.

[beanflying]

It is hardly an 'unwarranted fear' it is known and factual and has science behind it spanning centuries. Your opinion is simply wrong.

For flat breads depending on the type you deliberately OVERWORK the dough to work the glutens in the dough. Pita is one particular example where you want a harder and more stretchy dough.

[coppercone2]

ok if you feel the compulsive urge to food processor it for 15 minutes till the motor melts

[Psi]

A breadmaker on dough setting is great for making pizza dough.
Just set it to dough, and 1.5 hours later you have some dough that has been well mixed, risen and then been punched down.
But you really need to put the dough in a covered bowl in the fridge for 1-2 days before using the dough to get a good flavour.

A food processor is not suitable because it mixes way to fast. The dough will get too hot and start to cook in a food processor just from the friction.
A bowl mixer machine with a dough hook is ok because they have a speed control and can be set for a slow mix that wont overheat anything.



FYI, sub out 1/3 cup of the flour with potato flakes for a nicer pizza. 

[coppercone2]

1 minute in a food processor that is pulsed is not gonna heat anything up unless you have the most foul of blade edge and ultra worn surfaces. I saw it today.

Maybe if you have a oilless dough with the most shoddy beat up food processor ever it might get heated up a little bit. But its done quick. a few pulses and thats it.

Food processor blades are easy to sharpen on a diamond plate BTW. I did that today too. They had a bit of a bur on them. 400 grit, 1000 grit, ultra fine grit, followed by the most gentle of stoning with a soft fine oil stone to get rid of anything that you missed on a flat surface and a citric acid bath to repassivate the edge.

I am just saying it works. IDK if I wanna do it again because I find the food processor more difficult to clean then the bread machine or the dough hook. Its the fastest at mixing it but I don't like cleaning it too much. The bread machine silo is the easiest to clean out of all the machines IMO. And there is no lid, irregular surface, etc... you can literarly clean it by poking it with your hand and rinsing it upside down, followed by a easy soap sponge wipe and rinse.  and its not a giant thing like the bread machine bowl or complex plexiglass like the food processor... in that thing you need to scrub the bore with a brush, work around the sharp blade, etc... those food processors are a bit of a process to keep clean lol. Especially if you let the dough rise in there, and of course the splatter will dry out and stick.


I do need to replace the jesus clip on the bread machine though, that is very rusty on the under side. But at least that is a standard part. Food processor is 7 seperate parts, the bread machine is literarly two that are stack fit.


when I tried it by hand I got flour on top of the kitchen fume extractor some how lol



But I am also thinking, I am using a big food processor to make a little pizza. If you have a small food processor I can see that getting hot maybe. Mine is over sized. IDK how well they work if you really pack them to the top. I typically derate the capacity of everything because we just don't get good motors or gears or bearings as consumers. The only one I use to full capacity is the mini chopper, and I just replaced the blade assemble on that because it was cracking and hard to clean. That probobly happened because I used it 80% full for years. But its convenient.

[Psi]

1 minute in a food processor that is pulsed is not gonna heat anything up unless you have the most foul of blade edge and ultra worn surfaces. I saw it today.

Yeah, agreed.  But I cant see how 1 min of pulsing could ever mix the dough properly.
It's not just about mixing the ingredients together, there's a time component where the flour needs to absorb the water and hydrate properly and mixing at higher speed isnt going to make that happen any faster.

[coppercone2]

watch the video, some people even go as little as 20 seconds.

if you have a low hydration dough maybe its more of a problem, but pizza usually want a fairly wet dough so it rises nicely

[Marco]

Yeah, agreed.  But I cant see how 1 min of pulsing could ever mix the dough properly.

Blades go fast.

[beanflying]

A food processor is just not suitable for this type of dough! The analogue to this would be trying to solder 0402 SMD with a 100W Birko soldering Iron. Can you do it - maybe. Will the result be any good likely NO.

There is very good reasons bakers and people making Pizza use slow speed dough hooks.

Made on one of my Kenwood Chefs and part of a 2x3' slab from the commercial Oven.

[Marco]

For really large batches they also use horizontal barrels with cement mixer type bars. Horses for courses.

That said, there's vertical cutter mixers for pizza shops which use blades to go fast. The food processor is the baby version of a VCM.

[coppercone2]

sounds like if the true nature of the arguement is 'is dominos good'

[beanflying]

For really large batches they also use horizontal barrels with cement mixer type bars. Horses for courses.

That said, there's vertical cutter mixers for pizza shops which use blades to go fast. The food processor is the baby version of a VCM.

Are you sure you are not confusing a dough divider/rounder?

Even whole bag (50-60kg of flour) mixers still run a slow speed hook.

[coppercone2]

i think I seen that machine in korean street food videos