Pizza Notes

Last update 10/12/01

Last month, I submitted a couple of pies to an informal pizza bake-off hosted at Das Weidemanschloss. In preparation for this brutal no-meat-barred event, I compiled a laundry list of notes and observations, some of which turned out to be about pizza making. I thought it might be edutaining for some were I to glue these notes together in a semi-coherent fashion. Comments are encouraged.

Sign my guestbook!

DOUGH

Step 1: Colonizing the yeast

Combine the following in a small bowl:

1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 package active dry yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp flour

Stir, then let rest for at least 30 minutes.

Notes on this step: I rarely measure anything for this step. However, it's important to not overdo the sugar, as the yeast can and will go on fatal sugar binges. Molto Mario, from the food network (foodtv.com), suggests replacing the water with red or white wine. Alice Waters, in the Chez Panisse Pasta and Pizza Cookbook, suggests using rye flour for this step. Another chef from foodtv.com, Alton Brown, recommends cake yeast over package yeast. For a sourdough crust, leave this yeast mixture out at room temperature for between a day and forever. Once per day, pour off any alcohol that forms on the surface, add more water and flour in equal amounts (even as much as a cup of each), and stir. (In "The Making of a Chef", the author, Michael Ruhlman, tells a story of a baker who, after losing his main starter, retrieved a back-up starter which had been cached for years under a floorboard.) To make pizza dough, start with 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the sourdough starter mixture and proceed with the recipe. Don't use up all of your starter for one batch of dough, have some left over and continue to feed it. For more on sourdough starter, do a web search.

Step 2: Mixing and Kneading

Combine in a mixer or food processor:

2.5 cups flour
1 tsp salt (preferably kosher or sea salt)

To this flour mixture add:

3/4 cup water
1/4 cup milk
the yeast mixture or starter mixture

Mix until the dough comes together, then knead for 15-20 minutes. The dough should look smooth and silky when kneaded, but will still be a bit sticky to the touch. Feel free to mix in more water or flour as needed. When in doubt, initially err on the side of excess moisture; it's easier to later incorporate flour than it is to incorporate water.

Notes on this step: Bread flour vs all-purpose flour. The bread flour yields a crust with a crispy exterior and a chewy interior, but is more difficult to work with. AP flour yields a crackery exterior and a fluffy interior. Or you can get some of each world with a combination. You can replace the milk with water. Todd English, of Olives, makes a wet, sloppy dough. After mixing, he divides the dough into quarters, dredges each quarter in flour, lets it rest, rolls it out very thinly, tops it, and bakes for five minutes. You can knead by hand, or with a mixer and dough hook, or with a food processor. If the food processor tends to get hot, use very cold water or even ice cubes.

Step 3: Developing

Put the dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. The bowl should be large enough for the dough to comfortably expand to twice its size. Put the bowl in the fridge overnight. You can also freeze the dough for later.

Notes on this step: If you want to make and use the dough on the same day, start as early in the day as possible, and let the dough develop in a warm oven. You want a puffy, bubbly, soft, silky dough. If this is not what you have, you may need to let the dough develop further.

CRUST-MAKING TECHNIQUE

Take the dough out of the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes (but up to several hours) before forming the crust.

Put the baking stone or tile in the oven and preheat to 475-500F for a minimum of 45 minutes.

Grab a piece of the dough, perhaps 1/4th to 1/3rd of the total amount. Work with as much as you can handle; a well-made small pizza is superior to a poorly-made large one.

Form the dough into a ball, then flatten the ball and start stretching the dough, starting from the center and working outward. Work on a lightly floured surface, either a wooden cutting board or a pizza paddle (known as a "peel."). If the dough is too sticky to manage easily, flour your hands, the peel, and/or the surface of the dough as often as necessary, but no more than you have to. You want the dough as moist as possible.

The main methods of stretching are:

Rolling pin. Some recipes reject this method, the most oft-cited reason being "the bubbles are pressed out." My main complaint is that it doesn't handle bread flour properly. Rolling is the recommended method in Chez Panisse Pizza Cookbook.
Centrifugal force. I.e., spinning it in the air. I personally am unable to do this.
Gravity. Drape the dough over your fist or fingers. The dough will start to stretch. Move it around so it stretches evenly. If done right, this method is optimal for preserving the yeast bubbles.
Brute force. Lay the disc down on the surface and gently push and pull on the edges and anywhere else that is thicker than desired. This can be particularly frustrating if your dough is made with bread flour, as such dough tends to contract. My suggestion is to work on a small section of the dough at a time. Pin it down, pull it out, and hold it. The dough will resist at first, but will eventually "relax."

How thin can the crust be? You can't know without practice and experimentation. Play with it. Push and pull the dough to its limits. Don't fret over holes; they can be repaired simply by pinching. As a last resort you can roll up the dough and start over. Unlike cookie, cake, or pastry dough, pizza dough has a high tolerance for rough treatment.

Beyond the logistics of getting the pizza into the oven and onto the stone, crust shape is of little importance. Neither symmetry nor roundness affects flavor.

Notes on this step: Some recipes call for the crust to be rolled out on cornmeal, not flour. I had done this for years, but have since decided that plain flour is more to my liking.

TOPPINGS

Use high-quality ingredients, and use them sparingly. If you use toppings with a high water content, such as tomatoes, shake a bit of salt on them and let them drain. Otherwise the liquid may soggify your pizza.

Recipe 1: Satanic Pizza

Combine in a bowl or jar:

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp light oil (light olive, grapeseed, canola)
3 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced or minced
2 tsp red chile flakes

Make sure garlic is coated with oil. Heat in a microwave for 10-15 seconds. Stir and let rest for anywhere from a few minutes to overnight, covered and in the fridge.

Distribute garlic over the crust. Make some effort to drain excess oil from the garlic. If there are any pools of oil on the crust, spread it around. For a more evil pizza, shake on more chile flakes. Top with the cheese layer.

Makes 1 pizza (approx 1/3rd of a dough recipe).

Notes on this step: Actual recipe is as follows: slice or mince as much garlic as you want. Cover with oil, approximately one part extra virgin olive oil to one or two parts light oil. Shake chile flakes into the mixture until you're ready to stop. You will probably have leftover oil. It can be used for saute, or as a delicious bread dip. My technique for skinning garlic: put a clove under a mug or glass or (unopened) can. Gently rock back and forth until the clove cracks. The skin should then come off easily. This recipe was inspired by Centioli from Pagliacci Pizza, a Seattle-based chain. The toppings on a Centioli are the same as the Satanic, but the folks at Pagliacci can somehow get them all on a perfect wafer-thin crust that is both crisp and chewy. Their pizza I can take or leave, but the Centioli is worth amputation. To make a good tomato sauce, mix 2 tbsp of this garlic-oil mixture with 2 tbsp canned tomato paste and a pinch of salt. Adding a few herbs wouldn't hurt. Spread the sauce lightly and evenly over the crust and top with cheese and other toppings. If you make multiple batches of the oil, add time to the microwave. Maybe 5 seconds for every multiple.

Recipe 2: Sesame-Asparagus Pizza

Combine in a bowl or jar:

1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp light oil (light olive, grapeseed, canola)
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/8 inch ginger, minced.

Heat in microwave for 10-15 seconds.

In a separate bowl, wash, snap an inch or so off the stem and slice into half-inch pieces:

2 stalks asparagus (you may need to peel the lower part if the skin is tough)

Add:

1/2 green onion, thinly sliced or minced
2 tsp lemon zest
oil mixture, with bits of garlic and ginger
salt to taste

Mix. Distribute evenly atop pizza crust. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds. (optional) Top with cheese layer.

Makes 1 pizza.

Notes on this step: Can substitute broccoli for some or all of the asparagus. Be sure to peel off the tough skin, and cut into pieces similar in size to half-inch asparagus pieces. As with the garlic oil, if you double this recipe, add some time to the microwave when heating the oil.

Recipe 3: Poirier's Pizza

Toss together:

1/2 pear, peeled, cored, and cut into 1.4 inch slices
lemon or lime juice

Spread evenly over the pizza crust:

1/2 to 2 oz feta or goat cheese, cubed or crumbled
2 to 4 tbsp almonds, toasted and slivered

Add the regular cheese layer (see below), top with a layer of pear. Grind black pepper and shake a little salt over the pear slices. (Non-vegetarian option: alternate thin slices of ham, lean bacon, pancetta, or prosciutto with the pear. If the meat is fatty, use less cheese.)

Immediately before serving, drizzle pizza with:

1 to 2 tsp balsamic reduction

(Balsamic reduction is made by heating balsamic vinegar on medium-low until the volume has been reduced to half.)

Makes 1 pizza.

CHEESE

There is such a thing as too much cheese: if the base fails to crisp, you've hit critical mass. Aside from this mandate, the rules of cheese should be dictated solely by your preferences. If you must have more cheese than the dough can withstand, try adding the excess cheese halfway through baking. Or squirt on Cheez Whiz afterwards.

For the bake-off, I used muenster and parmesan. I chose this combination somewhat haphazardly: muenster has been my favorite cheese for as long as I can remember, and parmesan browns well and a tiny bit adds a lot of flavor. Probably any cheeses will do, though I will assert that the popularity of Cheddar and Mozzarella is a crime against humanity which should be rectified.

Note that many chefs discourage combining parmesan with seafood because it makes the seafood taste old. If, for whatever reason, you don't use parmesan, you may need to salt your toppings.

For the bake-off I used about a 2/3 pound of muenster and about 1/8th of a pound of grated parm for a single dough recipe (3 to 4 pizzettas).

BAKING

Gently shake the paddle or cutting board on which the pizza is resting. The pizza should slide around without coming apart. If the pizza seems tacky, sprinkle flour around the pizza and slide a spatula underneath all sides of the pizza, pushing a little flour here and there. Continue doing this until the pizza slides appropriately. You may need to shove a lot of flour under there if the dough is particularly moist.

Slide the pizza onto the baking stone. If you've never done this before, practice with a bare crust, or one brushed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. The result will be delicious even if it ends up face down. Make sure the paddle or board is very close to the stone. (It may even touch the stone, which is why you want to use a wooden cutting board and not a plastic one. You may also want to wear oven mitts.) Tilt the paddle away from you slightly, then give the paddle a gentle jerk towards you so that the far edge of the pizza is resting on the far edge of the stone. Now that the pizza is anchored to the stone, you can just pull the paddle out and hopefully the pizza will stay put.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until crust and cheese are browned.

Notes on this step: For the baking stone, I always just used a $1 tile from Import Tile in Berkeley, and mocked the fools who shelled out $5-$10 for a stone from Sur La Table or Williams-Sonoma. However, it turns out I'm dating one such fool, and now having used this fool's baking stone, I must admit that the expensive stone produced a slightly better crust than the cheap tile.

FINISHING

You can finish the pizza by adding more toppings such as salt, pepper, herbs, fresh or canned tomato, fresh or canned sauce, etc.

You can also drizzle or brush oil and/or salt on the crusts as soon as the pizza comes out of the oven.

Let pizza stand for a couple of minutes before serving or eating. Brush off excess flour and burnt tile residue from the pizza bottom.