Just made pizza for the whole family last night for the first time all summer. It's the first time everyone has been home since mid-June. I probably make pizza about 45 weeks a year. What I do has been customized specifically to my family's tastes.
I have definite, discreet tasks and they do not (and actually should not) need to be done the day off.
I make a big batch of dough every couple of weeks - about 3.5 pounds. I let the dough rise for about 36 hours. I let it go longer if the rise is chilled and less if the rise is on the counter and less still if it rises on the counter in the summer. I took a cooking class in Italy years ago and the instructor said in Naples the dough rises for three days before it is used so I started trying that. I gone as long as five days and as short as a few hours and found what my family likes best. I mix the dough by hand as my KitchenAid cannot handle near that much dough and I've done it enough now that it takes me about 10 minutes so I'm not sure the mixer would be any faster.
My dough is a mixture of KAF white whole wheat which is about 14% protein according to the label mixed with a lower gluten flour. I've used KAF pastry flour and a variety of cake flours. I started with the Queen until she was banished from the realm and then went to Bob's which is also no longer available. Now I use Soft as Silk. I also use flax meal and chickpea flour when I have it, both of which are gluten free. I use flax because I don't use any oil in my dough and it adds a fullness to the flavor that was otherwise missing. I use chickpea to add some nutritional protein for my six year old who does not eat a lot of proteins in her diet. I use Bob's flax and chickpea flours. I use these because they are (or were) readily available at reasonable prices in local markets. I supposed I could use the oo Italian flour but it's more esoteric AND must be ordered from KAF. I use 50% cake flour, 40% WWW, and 10% other.
After I divide these up into 5.5 ounce rounds and wrap them individually and either put them in the refrigerator or freezer depending on when I will need them. Usually half go in the freezer and half in the refrigerator. I wrap each round in plastic and then put them in Ziplock bags. They last a few days in the fridge and a few months in the freezer. I use a rolling pin because it allows me to make a very thin, even crust that is between 11 and 12 inches. My dough is not very stretchy because of the low gluten flours. I could hand stretch it but it would not be as flat and would have a big crust edge that my family does not prefer. Tossing dough, while entertaining, is messy and sends flour all over the kitchen so I stopped that a while ago. The Giordano's in my neighborhood in Chicago used a sheeter but they were making hundreds of crusts a day. They used it for thin crust and stuffed.
My wife used to make sauce but she doesn't since she found a jarred sauce she likes. I was starting to make it because the sauce she likes is crazy expensive at the grocery stores but then Costco started carrying it for a little more reasonable price. But it's still on my list to start making my own sauce. Again, while this can be done day of, it can also be done way ahead. We used to have frozen sauce and dough waiting to be used.
The stuff I always do day off is grate the cheese - I could use shredded cheese but haven't found one my family likes yet - and prepare any of the toppings. Of these two tasks I could actually grate the cheese a couple of days a head of time if I thought about it.
My wife usually cuts up the vegetables but I did that last night since she was out with two of our kids.
I let the ovens heat for about 45 minutes before I start to bake so I turned them on when I started grating cheese and cutting vegetables.
I did the day-of prep, made six pizzas, and cleaned up and it took me under two hours.
Making pizza is like anything else, the more you do it the more practiced you will become and it will be faster and more routine. Also by breaking things down into discreet tasks and figuring out what can be done ahead to make day-of prep easier.
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