Making Pizza
I’m going to try making pizza later this week (Friday?), as part of the general yeast-bread making experiments over the past month. Here’s one blogger’s guide to doing this: BillyReisinger.com :: The Ridiculously Thorough Guide to Making Your Own Pizza.
I don’t have a pizza stone — I was thinking of going to Home Depot and getting some terra cotta tiles — but I’ve seen a few notes about using the pizza pans instead of a stone on rec.food.cooking. I do have one of those Silpat things, so I’ll probably give the pizza cooking a whirl on that, with structural support coming from a cooking sheet or the like.
The basic dough (according to this site) for two large pies is:
- 1 1/2 Cups – Warm Water (not hot!)
- 2 Tbsp. – Sugar
- 1 Envelope – Active Dry Yeast (not the quick kind)
- 2 Tsp. – Salt
- 4 Tbsp. – Olive Oil
- 4 Cups – Flour (whole wheat or all-purpose for thinner dough; bread flour for thicker, chewier dough)
This is given a single rise, then a punch down and cooling.
The given cooking temperature of 425F seems a low compared to some other things I’ve read, which generally calls for 500F and above. We’ll see how this turns out.
The yeast bread results have been inconsistent so far, as I don’t seem to get good texture — nice holes from CO2 bubbles — very often. Typically, the bread I’m baking is very dense, and I’m not sure why.