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Hey folks, as the topic says, I just used my first pizza stone last night, and I can already tell this is gonna get out of hand. It's a 15" round stone, which just fits in my oven. I commented to my girlfriend as the first pizza went in that I need a bigger oven, so I could fit an 18" stone in there, at which point she suggested a backyard oven, which led me here... as if I needed another obsession. :>
The root of the obsession is actually my desire to eat proper New York pizza here in cold and forlorn Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the acquisition of the stone and peel yesterday has gotten me closer than ever - I'm also getting pretty close on the dough recipe as well, last night was the first time I managed to stretch out a pizza the way I've seen them do it countless times on my visits to the big city. Well, my own somewhat lame attempt at doing that anyways, I'm a long way from tossing it up in the air and all that.
Anyways, I'm interested in any comments on my recipe and technique.
For the dough, I measured:
15 oz water
approx 2-3 tbsp olive oil
4 heaping tsp sugar
2 tsp instant yeast
dry mix:
approx 1 tsp salt
5 cups all-purpose flour
5 tsp vital wheat gluten
I mixed the sugar in the water, added the yeast and let it dissolve, added the olive oil and then about 4.5 cups of the flour mixture. kneaded that in a Kitchenaid mixer for 15 minutes and let it rise for an hour.
This got me a very stretchy dough that, in one case, pulled thin enough to see through - first time I ever had the problem of one of the pizzas coming out with too thin a crust, a failure that made me very happy.
The sauce was a can of tomatoes, drained, a head of garlic and a liberal shaking of italian seasoning, put through the blender. I don't say this very often, but I'll probably use a bit less garlic next time. :>
Anyways, I made the zzas on the flat side of the peel, with a liberal helping of flour underneath. I learned from my first pizza that just because the stretched dough slides around, that doesn't mean the fully loaded pizza will. I've read that it's better to use cornmeal, because flour can burn, but cornmeal on the bottom of a pizza just seems utterly wrong to me, and I didn't have a problem with the flour.
Aside from the first one, which I did manage to save (it came out a bit misshapen), I got the hang of working with the peel pretty quickly. I've been mentally preparing for this pretty much my whole life - since I was six and first visited my relatives in Jersey, and watched this gigantic smiling Italian man make a pie. I coulda sat in that little pizzeria all day. Probably still could, if he's still alive.
But I digress. The oven was set to 350, but I'm pretty sure that my oven is hotter than the markings, so I can't really say exactly what temp it was at. I had the stone on the bottom rack after the first pizza, in an attempt to cook the bottoms a bit more.
So, here's what needs work. First off, the top cooked a lot faster than the bottom. Not to the point inedibility, but I had to pull them out when the cheese started going brown, but the crust could still have used a few more minutes on the bottom to get that nice crispiness.
Anyone who's had zza in NY/NJ area knows that it's characterized by a thin but crispy crust (a lot of people fold their slice in half), and then the edge is chewy, kinda like a pretzel. My pizzas might only need to get the cooking evened out to get this effect (I don't know if it's the gluten or the long kneading or what, but I'm very happy with my results so far), but any suggestions, both in terms of recipe or oven technique, are appreciated.
I was thinking, after reading about the short cooking times in the outdoor ovens, that maybe a hotter oven is the way to go - if the stone is hotter, it'll cook the crust in a shorter time, and if the increase in speed in cooking the bottom is more than the increase at the top, it would even things out.
Thoughts?
The root of the obsession is actually my desire to eat proper New York pizza here in cold and forlorn Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the acquisition of the stone and peel yesterday has gotten me closer than ever - I'm also getting pretty close on the dough recipe as well, last night was the first time I managed to stretch out a pizza the way I've seen them do it countless times on my visits to the big city. Well, my own somewhat lame attempt at doing that anyways, I'm a long way from tossing it up in the air and all that.
Anyways, I'm interested in any comments on my recipe and technique.
For the dough, I measured:
15 oz water
approx 2-3 tbsp olive oil
4 heaping tsp sugar
2 tsp instant yeast
dry mix:
approx 1 tsp salt
5 cups all-purpose flour
5 tsp vital wheat gluten
I mixed the sugar in the water, added the yeast and let it dissolve, added the olive oil and then about 4.5 cups of the flour mixture. kneaded that in a Kitchenaid mixer for 15 minutes and let it rise for an hour.
This got me a very stretchy dough that, in one case, pulled thin enough to see through - first time I ever had the problem of one of the pizzas coming out with too thin a crust, a failure that made me very happy.
The sauce was a can of tomatoes, drained, a head of garlic and a liberal shaking of italian seasoning, put through the blender. I don't say this very often, but I'll probably use a bit less garlic next time. :>
Anyways, I made the zzas on the flat side of the peel, with a liberal helping of flour underneath. I learned from my first pizza that just because the stretched dough slides around, that doesn't mean the fully loaded pizza will. I've read that it's better to use cornmeal, because flour can burn, but cornmeal on the bottom of a pizza just seems utterly wrong to me, and I didn't have a problem with the flour.
Aside from the first one, which I did manage to save (it came out a bit misshapen), I got the hang of working with the peel pretty quickly. I've been mentally preparing for this pretty much my whole life - since I was six and first visited my relatives in Jersey, and watched this gigantic smiling Italian man make a pie. I coulda sat in that little pizzeria all day. Probably still could, if he's still alive.
But I digress. The oven was set to 350, but I'm pretty sure that my oven is hotter than the markings, so I can't really say exactly what temp it was at. I had the stone on the bottom rack after the first pizza, in an attempt to cook the bottoms a bit more.
So, here's what needs work. First off, the top cooked a lot faster than the bottom. Not to the point inedibility, but I had to pull them out when the cheese started going brown, but the crust could still have used a few more minutes on the bottom to get that nice crispiness.
Anyone who's had zza in NY/NJ area knows that it's characterized by a thin but crispy crust (a lot of people fold their slice in half), and then the edge is chewy, kinda like a pretzel. My pizzas might only need to get the cooking evened out to get this effect (I don't know if it's the gluten or the long kneading or what, but I'm very happy with my results so far), but any suggestions, both in terms of recipe or oven technique, are appreciated.
I was thinking, after reading about the short cooking times in the outdoor ovens, that maybe a hotter oven is the way to go - if the stone is hotter, it'll cook the crust in a shorter time, and if the increase in speed in cooking the bottom is more than the increase at the top, it would even things out.
Thoughts?
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