Quoted from ElBarto
Hey MeanDean
What's your mixture for pizza base? I keep getting hits and misses with the same recipe
Cheers
This is for sort of a deep dish crust. If you experiment you'lle get an idea of how much, which pan, and so on and so forth.
The crust was a result of trial and error but from originally trying to make bread and it's pretty much just put flower in a bowl until it looks like it's enough, sprinkle some yeast on top, put some more yeast in some warm water and stir it up, come back and stir it again, and again until it's all gotten wet and mixed in the water, then it sits for not long, 5 to 15 minutes. If the water is too hot it will kill the yeast but the idea is to get it growing, 37 to 45 degrees should be well within non yeast lethal temperatures and sufficient to get it started. Then the water goes in the flour and gets stirred around, then I add more water as needed. I have flour on the cutting board and pull the dough out and put it on there and then turn it over, cover it with flour the best I can without making a mess and start pushing it out into a flat peice the size of the pan... and the size of my cutting board happens to be perfect in my case. I'll turn it over a few times in the process if it's too sticky and when it's right put it in the pan which is a metal thing that you'de cook a ham in... one of those things. First I put some oil in the pan though and I put in about... I don't know how to describe it, I eyeball it too, I learned to eyeball it from preparing dough at pizza hut but use a little more than half of that
It's more than you think you need and less than you will later think you need once you get used to it
lol... I'm honestly at a loss here.
The dough sits in the pan for not as long as you'de expect but maybe so if you've run out of yeast and just used a little. I use a bunch. It's good to already have the toppings and sauce and stuff ready in advance and check on the dough about 15 minutes later. Once it starts to rise a little it will get exponentially faster (the exponent being the number 2
) so if it's just come up a little in 15 minutes then come back in 5 and check again. Once it comes up enough that you can press it back down good enough with your hands that you can at the same time shape it so that the edges come upward then it's good.
The sauce I used to stew and reduce tomatos but it's a huge pain and I've found that tomato paste and water is better. I use equal parts but you'lle find pizza restaraunts using 1 part paste to 3 parts water. This is really really thin with any tomato paste I've ever bought and 1 to 1 works well for me once I have a feel for how much to put on it. I add basil and some stuff called "Garlic Steak" that you can find in the spice section, McCormic makes it. If you don't have that then onion powder and garlic powder more than anything and then whatever else sounds good. Pepper sounds good to me... sounds strange but sounds good.
The oven temperature varies. I'll set it at 220 but I'll lower it if the dough had less water than usual in it, it's a balance between getting the crust done and crisp (not always easy to tell by looking either and there can be a low threshold between not quite done then browned and perfect then a little burnt) If the bottom part of the crust is too hard like it's tough, it needed more oil. 200 is the lowest the oven gets set at. Sorry, it's a balance between the dough getting done with the amount of water in it and the cheese not getting over burnt. If the cheese gets very brown then all is not lost, it's likely just the surface and if it's not burnt then it'll be harder to eat but still good. I like it a bit browned so I aim for it and let the crust go longer if I have to.
Also, once you mash the crust down, if it isn't right (I aim for having a big lip around the outside so nothing spills out into the pan) you can just let it rise again and remash it and if you screwed up and got holes in the crust then it can be patched with a peice of dough from somewhere else, I've had horribly falling apart crust patched up and come out fine. I've also had disasters that still tasted good with a knife and a fork.
Once the crust is right, mashed down flat again, it's not good to waste any time putting on the sauce and toppings and getting it into the oven. It will continue to rise in the oven before it heats up enough to bake into shape.
If you want a thin crust pizza, you can rise the dough in a ball on an oiled pan then put in the refrigerator and pull it out and mash it into place putting it in the oven without delay or even just do it straight after mixing it as long as your yeast in the water was active. If it was active there would be a slight foam or... stuff in the middle, much more subtle than I expected from reading about it. Barely noticable but you'lle recognise it when you've done it a few times. If in doubt you can just let it sit there for an hour. You won't really want to use oil for thinner crust or hand tossed pizza, youlle want a pan that's been seasoned well and lots of flour to shape the dough... I'de probably use a rolling pin, I hate getting any flour anywhere that it doesn't need to be, it's a pain.
I've seen corn meal used instead of flour for keeping the dough from sticking when you work with it. For a thin one you'de ideally have a roller thingy with spikes to put tiny holes in it so giant air bubles wont appear. I don't have much experince with doing thin ones at home so I can't really say how it would turn out without that. Don't know how non-stick it would be either, but with a deep dish pan it typically just needs to be loosened on the edges with a spatula where stray cheese might have fallen and where the dough stuck a little, it absorbs the oil from the bottom and retains that a bit when it's pushed up the side.
Anyhow, after it's loosed up I can usually work the spatula underneath the pizza and get it down there while tilting the pan to get it started coming off the side while supporting the middle and if all goes well you can get it out of a broiling pan and onto a cutting board like this. I hate pizza cutters. I use a butcher knife. It has good length if it needs to make a straight clean cut but usually that's after working the bottom a little.
May the force be with you! I've screwed up a fair share of pizzas over the years trying it out and that was after knowing how to do it from working at 3 differant places. Pizza hut cheats. In the US their "hand tossed crust" is a ball of dough that's sent through a machine then placed on a pan. It's good though. Unbeleiveable how much pizza costs too and I'm really happy that I can make it pretty good for that reason.
20 minutes or shortly thereafter when I do it like this.
You want my recipe for canned ravioli with tossed salad and bread
Logged
anyone have any good recipes especially for slow cookers??
