Pizza-Making ?

[BakerAunt]

King Arthur now has a Grandma style pizza pan (11x11) as well as a Detroit Style pizza pan. Both of these pans are quite dark.

Most recently I've been making pan pizza using sourdough starter in a light metal half-sheet pan because my husband likes that kind of crust better than the thin roll-out kind that I had been making (and still like a lot). I use the KAF hint of first spraying the pan with non-stick spray (Crisco olive) then drizzling it with olive oil--no sticking and a crispy crust.

[Italiancook]

I had pizza dough in the freezer and took it out yesterday to thaw in fridge. It's from KAF Now or Later Pizza Crust. I didn't use the Pizza Dough Flavor, and my husband still loves the crust. It has semolina in it.

I made a green pepper & onion pizza with Mozzarella & Manchego cheese. I liked it better with the Manchego than with Fontina.

I think I'm putting too much olive oil & garlic sauce on it. I used a spoon to slather it on, as I would if it were tomato sauce. Do any of you put olive oil on your crust? If so, do you just brush some on, or do you put more than that on it?

I also think I had too much cheese, although no one complained about that. When I took the finished pizza out, there were a couple of puddles of "cheese milk" for lack of the correct term. I sopped them up with a paper towel, because they interfered with presentation.

My plan is to make a batch of the KAF Ultra Thin pizza, divide it in half and put both halves in the freezer. I still find pizza-making daunting, and it's just too much for me to make dough and a pizza on the same day.

Mike, what brand of artichokes do you use for pizza? I don't want to buy the big jar at Sam's, but would look for a grocery store size.

I learned a helpful trick from Sara Moulton's show. When she made pizza, she said she learned from an Italian to put oil on the rolling pin. That stops the dough from stretching then pulling back. Today, I stretched the dough by hand. When I had some pull-back, I put olive oil on my hands and finished the stretching with no problem.

[Mike Nolan]

I buy the 33 ounce jar at Sams for under $7, you want ones that haven't been marinated in oil (too greasy) or spices (you don't want the artichoke flavor drowned out.) Our Costco only carries ones marinated in oil.

DO NOT BUY THEM IN CANS, they'll taste tinny! You can find small jars of them, but the cost of the big jar at Sams is a MUCH better buy, even if you throw half of it out!

The jar only lasts 2-3 weeks after it has been opened, so once we open a jar we have to find things to do with them. We put them on salads and use them in recipes. Artichokes stimulate your taste buds, so they make everything taste more flavorful.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm not sure why having oil on the rolling pin would make a difference. Dough that is high in glutenin has high elasticity so it stretches well, but that also means it snaps back, so you have to give the dough time to relax before stretching it a second time.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook: I use a nice silicone brush that I got from King Arthur (and which they do not sell any more) to brush the upper crust of my pizza lightly with olive oil before topping it. I think it helps keep ingredients from sogging the pizza.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Italiancook]

Mike, my husband came home from Sam's today with a jar of their artichokes. I'm eager to try them on pizza, but that won't happen until June. I've always been unhappy with artichokes from the grocery, but some where in cans and some may have been marinated, so I'm glad to know about Sam's. I like artichokes.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Italiancook.

[Mike Nolan]

I've got a number of silicone brushes, the one I like best is a small one I got at a Le Creuset shop. I use them mostly for applying butter to pans and breads and the bigger ones hold too much butter and/or release it too quickly, so things get too much butter on them.

[Italiancook]

Today, I finally made Artichoke & Bacon Pizza, using artichokes from Sam's. I used the Now or Later Pizza crust from KAF that I made earlier this week. Thanks, Mike, for the tip about artichokes at Sam's. They're really good, and I'm sure they'll become a staple in my refrig. They were delicious on the pizza. Thanks, Aaron, for mentioning you par-cook your bacon for pizza. I think that if I had cooked it all the way, it would have burned in the oven. As it was, the bacon was perfect.

Okay, I know I'm still a fledgling pizza-maker, but this is really time-consuming for me. I can't seem to get the knack of hand-shaping the dough. I guess I'll have to go back to using a rolling pin. It took me 1 hour 20 minutes from start to out-of-oven. That time included par-cooking the bacon, making olive oil with garlic (I cook the oil until both sides of the garlic are slightly brown), and cutting up and drying the artichokes. I dried them because I thought they'd make pizza too wet if I didn't. Do you dry your artichokes for pizza, Mike, or just drain them?

By the time the finished pizza came out of the oven, I was too worn out to enjoy eating it. The main issue was shaping the dough. I stretched it a little by hand, then I put it on parchment and spent, probably, 15 minutes trying to stretch it out into a rectangle big enough to feed 2 people. I'd never be able to serve pizza to anyone!

[Mike Nolan]

I just quarter them, they drain a bit as you're doing that, I guess.

[RiversideLen]

Italiancook, I have found that subbing some of the flour with semolina helps it from snapping back when stretching it. Half a cup should do.

[Mike Nolan]

Some pizza makers prefer a low-protein flour, others prefer a high-protein flour.

But the real key is probably to come up with a dough that is more extensible than flexible, which means a flour that is higher in gliadin than glutenin. Most hard wheats tend to have more glutenin in them, but I believe semolina, which is durum wheat, has more gliadin, which is why it is good for pasta making, where you want extensibility.

[Mike Nolan]

I fully understand how making pizzas can wear you out to the point where you don't enjoy eating them. With just 2 of us, taking the time to get the oven ready to bake just one pizza is hardly worth the effort. When we've done it for a group, we usually have had one person rolling out the dough and someone else adding the toppings and baking them. I should try the pizza oven that goes on the outdoor gas grill, since it makes smaller pizzas, but it also takes 20-30 minutes to preheat.

I think that's one of the reasons why we've started making lavash pizza now that we've found a local store that sells good lavash. I sort of miss having tomato sauce on them (it softens the lavash too much); while many people rate the crust as the most important part of pizza, I think the sauce can make or break a good pizza.

[RiversideLen]

In my view, every component of the pizza is important. Mike, have you tried slices of cheese on the lavash and putting the sauce on last?

[Mike Nolan]

I usually put shredded mozzarella and havarti on it, I find putting tomato slices on it helps add some tomato flavor. I think I have some dried powdered tomato skins in the freezer, they might add some tomato flavor too.

I'm making a batch of marinara tonight for lasagna, if it is thick enough I might set some aside and try it on a lavash pizza

[BakerAunt]

When I was making thin crust pizza, I used the KAF thin-crust recipe. I would make the dough, then while it was rising, prep the toppings. I usually shaped the dough by hand on parchment paper. It made two pizzas, and since I was baking my husband's first, I would do that crust first. When I did mine, I found that it stretched more easily, so clearly a waiting period of about 5 minutes before starting was needed with that particular crust. However, I never got it as large as the KAF recipe said. Twelve inches diameter was tops. I once made it as four small separate pizzas--top your own. I did the math to figure out what size each should be.

My husband prefers the sheet pan sourdough pizza crust that I've developed with my starter, and it is easier than the thin crust. Once it is in the pan, it does its second rise there, and that's when I prep the toppings.

Don't give up, Italian Cook. It's a matter of figuring out the routine, which gets easier and faster the more often you do it.

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