Anyone make their own pizza? Is it worth the time, effort and clean up?

[scrabbler1]

Years ago, I made pizza bagels often. I would slice bagels into 2, sometimes 3 (if they were very thick) surfaces then load them up with tomato sauce, grated cheese, oregano, garlic and onion powders and salt. Dab some olive oil on top then nuke them for a few minutes. Nice and filling and not a lot of cleanup.

 

[braumeister]

How do you get the pizza not to stick on the paddle before baking? My problem is getting the uncooked pizza off the paddle without it getting messed up.

Simplest and most effective: sprinkle cornmeal on the peel, just like on the stone. Like tiny ball bearings that guarantee non-stick properties.

 

[splitwdw]

Wow, some of the original posters had racked up quite a few posts but I don't recognize the names from present day posters. Hope all is well.


I've made pizzas a few times but we have a friend that makes them almost every week and we get invited. His are far better than mine so I don't practice much. He uses his Big Green Egg to cook the pies.

 

[rodi]

We make pizza from scratch (including the dough).

We preheat the stone. We use corn meal on the peel before putting the pizza on the peel to transfer to the stone.

Our favorite pizza is a rip-off we copied from a local restaurant, Barbarella's... their "Pizza Max". Thin crust dough (we have a few different dough recipes). Creme Fraiche. Salmon (lox style - thin pieces). Roasted capers on top. Amazingly good. And making it at home saves us big $$ vs eating it at Barbarella's.

The OP - from many many years ago asked if you use a pizza slicer on the pizza brick. In our case no... we use the peel to transfer the pizza from the oven/brick to a cutting board.

Our pizza cutter is in the shape of the starship enterprise. It's super sharp - and appeals to the nerd in me.

 

[exnavynuke]

I enjoy making pizzas myself. I'm a big fan of pepperoni (as you can probably tell by the pic) and I prefer thin crust generally. I haven't made any for a while, but I really need to now that I have a pretty darn good homemade marinara sauce I can use. Maybe that's something I'll do this weekend.....

 

[brewer12345]

One of my projects lined up post-retirement is to try to replicate the pizza I ate in Naples a few years ago. I found some Type 00 flour at Wally World of all places, and I'll try to use the outdoor gas grill as an oven. Finding buffalo's milk fresh mozzarella is probably out of the question, though.

Snoop around at the right places and you will likely find buffalo mozzarella. Try Whole Paycheck and any other sizable grocery stores near you with a large cheese counter.

We use a stone in the oven in the winter, but other times of year we use a stone made for the grill. I can get the grill stone hotter and the pizza is better.

 

[MRG]

Snoop around at the right places and you will likely find buffalo mozzarella. Try Whole Paycheck and any other sizable grocery stores near you with a large cheese counter.

We use a stone in the oven in the winter, but other times of year we use a stone made for the grill. I can get the grill stone hotter and the pizza is better.

If you can't find it locally there's Amazon.

There's no Provel cheese around here, and that's my only option for "real" fake cheese.

 

[38Chevy454]

We make pizza at home a couple ways:
1. Traditional thinner style on stone in the oven. Always make the dough in bread machine. Cook the sauce down so it is thicker. Preheat the stone and then place dough on it and load it up. Place in oven 450F.
2. Deep dish style, use a cast iron Lodgeware (? whatever the name is) round pan with about 1.5 inch tall sides. Again dough made in bread machine, or have made a corn meal type. Have tried preheating the pan then room temp dough, initially cooking the dough, and just room temp pan and dough. All seem to work and no preheat or precook is less hassles. Load it up with layers of meats/veggies, sauce and cheese, up to the top of the dish. Cook at lower temp like 350-375F (I think, DW sets the temp and I have not paid enough attention). Comes out good and a nice change from the thinner style.

 

[Chuckanut]

Trader Joe's and Costco are two places that have buffalo mozzarella from time to time.

 

[audreyh1]

Wow - even down here in RGV land (no Whole Foods or Trader Joes) I have no problem finding buffalo mozzarella courtesy of HEB or Costco.

 

[brucethebroker]

I like the parchment idea.

We are hooked on Boboli pre made pizza crust. Makes it very easy. Just add sauce, meat/ veggies and cheese. No muss, no fuss. As good as take out.

 

[MOSAT]

Pizza geek here... the DW and I decided that one hobby that she thinks will keep me home and out of trouble is cooking. So we put in a backyard brick wood fired pizza oven.
BrickWood Outdoor Pizza Ovens | DIY Wood Fired & Wood Burning Pizza Oven Kits
I enjoy making the pizzas, firing the oven, and sometimes making bread in the morning after a pizza party. We will have pizza get togethers with friends and neighbors, 6 to 25 people. We make all types of pizza, all thin crust though, the oven is too hot at ~700-900 F to make thick crust pizza.
Not too many toppings we haven't tried. Like most hobbies, I dare not calculate the cost of the pizzas, needless to say the ROI on this oven is most likely in the 100 year range.

 

[Chuckanut]

WOW! What a great group of pizza makers! I knew there was a reason I liked this group.

 

[ikubak]

I have been making pizza from scratch for years. I use my bread maker to make the dough and DW makes the sauce. We add all kinds of veggies, mostly from our garden and also add dried tomatoes which helps absorb some of the liquid from the veggies.

I use a pizza stone and heat it up for 15 -20 minutes before putting the pizza on it. I experimented a lot with dough, stone, temp, sauce, etc. I had everything just about right but could never get the dough to come out as good as the dough from my favorite local pizza place. They sell the dough for a couple of bucks but I wanted to master the dough making technique so I kept trying.

A couple of years ago, DW and I were 2,000 miles from home in Escondido, CA at a winery on a hill that had a few pizza ovens. We got there late and were talking with the owner, Mr. Cordiano. We wanted to try the pizza but he said the pizza bakers were gone for the day but not to worry, he would make it himself. So we were the only people at the winery overlooking the San Pasqual valley, sipping on wine as the sun was setting while the owner made us two special pizzas. They were outstanding! DW said...best pizza ever.

So the next day we visited some wineries 30-40 miles away in Temecula, CA. DW said..."let's hit a winery really off the main drag that doesn't get as many people." We found one down a dirt road. It was bright and sunny that day and when we walked in it was obviously almost empty but it was dark and it took my eyes a minute to adjust. Once my eyes adjusted, I realized that the only other customers in the winery were Mr. Cordiano and his wife. What a coincidence! I was like..."Cordiano!! What are you doing here?!" So while tasting some wine, we got to talking about pizza. I told him exactly how I make it and I explained my pizza dough dilemma. He looked at me, nodded his head, leaned forward and in his Italian accent said, "I'll tell you how to make good pizza dough. You need high gluten flour." I said, "That's it? That's the secret to good pizza dough?" He said, "That's it."

So there you go. I would not normally share this information but we are a tight group here and even within this forum, how many people are going to read about making pizza?

 

[MOSAT]

I've experimented with different flours, flour ratios (Whole wheat/White unbleached) etc. Even went so far as to get flour milled at a local grist mill, ordered sour dough yeast starter from Italy, all looking for the best balance of crisp, rise, taste etc. It just comes down to what do you like best. Since we make anywhere from 10 to 20 pizzas a night, we've settled on something basic and quick. That's not to say that in a few months after ER, I won't try lager yeasts and do one to two day ferments for the dough, but that's for another thread.

 

[W2R]

I made pizza at home for a while, 30-40 years ago. Results were:

(1) It was amazingly delicious, much better than Dominos. My ex thought I was the goddess of pizza.

(2) It was awfully expensive to buy all the ingredients for a really, really good pizza. We were young and struggling financially, so it was more than I wanted to spend on dinner.

I suspect it is much easier to find ingredients at a reasonable price these days, than it was for me back then with limited shopping options and no car. And, to be blunt, I have more money now than I did in those days so the price would no longer be a barrier for me. Unfortunately I can't eat pizza much because of the calories. I don't have that youthful metabolism any more. So, no more homemade pizza for me.

 

[MRG]

This is the dough recipe I've been using. I like it.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016230-robertas-pizza-dough

 

[CaptTom]

One of my long-ago jobs was at a pizza shop. I like to keep in practice slinging dough up in the air to stretch it out.

The biggest impact to taste is the sauce. That's also the hardest to get right. I used to make my own from canned tomato and tomato paste, spiced the way I like it.

You can't buy high-gluten flour most places. Gluten is a four-letter word nowadays. Bread machine flour is actually higher in gluten. Or you can buy your own gluten and just add it yourself. Again, not in the supermarket, but Amazon sells it.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

I love a home made pizza with thinly sliced, right-out-of-the-garden tomatoes. Unfortunately, I can't seem to make pizza from scratch without demolishing the kitchen. I plan to make it more frequently when I'm retired and have the energy for the clean up.

 

[cbo111]

We used to make pizza dough from scratch, but recently found fresh-rolled dough at Publix Grocery that is pretty darned good. Its in the bakery section.

 

[MRG]

One of my long-ago jobs was at a pizza shop. I like to keep in practice slinging dough up in the air to stretch it out.

The biggest impact to taste is the sauce. That's also the hardest to get right. I used to make my own from canned tomato and tomato paste, spiced the way I like it.

You can't buy high-gluten flour most places. Gluten is a four-letter word nowadays. Bread machine flour is actually higher in gluten. Or you can buy your own gluten and just add it yourself. Again, not in the supermarket, but Amazon sells it.

If you can find Delallo tomatoes they're awesome. Not cheap but worth it.

 

[H2ODude]

Do homemade about every Friday night but tonight am doing a spinach calzone for variety. Always use the Tipo 00 flour and make our own sauce. Never have mastered the air throwing, usually end up rolling it out best I can and then hand stretching it. Most times use the parchment, and have found works best (for me) to put the naked crust in for a few minutes first to crust the underside a bit, then take it out for the build (removing the PP but using cornmeal). This way it slides off the peel just fine for me. Nothing like having it fold over on you as you try to shake it off the peel.

I used to use the Big Green Egg but had too many cases of too much smoke flavor, and it does take a while to get everything up to temp. Can't imagine the time it takes to fire up a wood fired oven!

 

[MOSAT]

It takes about 2 hours from cold start to cooking temperature That gives everyone time to socialize and have an adult beverage. It's also why we only fire it for a group of people. Too long and too expensive burning all that wood for one pizza. Normally we use a Lodge cast iron pizza pan for that. We tried the stone, but found the cast iron to be much better. Crispier crust, and you can put it in cold to a hot oven, no need to pre-heat like the stone.

 

[CaptTom]

Never have mastered the air throwing, usually end up rolling it out best I can and then hand stretching it.

Tossing the dough is not really that hard, if (as it appears) you're using high-gluten flour. Punch it down and flatten it a little around the edges with your fingers until it starts to resemble a tiny pizza, with a crust and flat center. Once you can drape it over a fist, work your other fist under it and just pull your fists apart gently, stretching evenly, especially around the edges.

Keep stretching and pulling with your fists. Don't worry about tossing it. As you get faster and more accurate stretching, the dough will spend more time in the air and less time draped over your fists. At that point, it's a small step to keep it in the air longer, and go a little higher, each time.

 

[folivier]

Years ago we used to make pizza often. We'd buy a french bread dough from a local grocer. Stretch it out and put a heavy plate on it to hold its shape while we baked it for 10-15 minutes. Then loaded it up and baked it again. Delicious!
The french bread dough must been high gluten since it was so hard to stretch out.