Pizza

Wow look at that. You reckon you got extra puff because of the flour?

When doing the frying pan pizza should the pan be really hot or incredibly hot?

Just wondering whether to go with full heat or boost (that's normally for boiling water) or whether the latter will just knack the pan and burn the base

The floor of a pizza oven wants to be 350-450 deg C so probably go with incredibly hot. You’re aiming for the moisture in the dough to vaporise instantaneously to give you that airy bubbly crust.

Pretty sure, it’s the only variable we changed.

Excellent, I’ll give it a go. Currently got 12kg of other stuff in stock though so it’ll be a while.

Here’s today’s. First try with frozen dough and it worked great. Will definitely keep a batch in the freezer for emergency pizza.

1 Attachment

Look great, how do you get family not to scoff it as it comes off the peel? I’m usually eating on my own!

Interesting cheers. I went with really hot which was about 300 Deg C but the bottom seemed to be getting a bit burnt.

Didn't get much spring but I'm not sure if that's the cooking or the dough.

Ha, I keep them warm in the kitchen oven and serve them all at once.

Tricky that. It might be that the frying pan gives up all its heat to the dough really quickly, burning the bottom but not springing the dough, as opposed to a heavy stone which has plenty of energy in reserve. Maybe lower and slower would be the way then. Vito has a good video on frying pan pizza.

Cast iron frying pan is a must I think

Sourdough pizzas based on the Nuvola Super, feared they were overproofed but the dough took it like a champ. Will up the hydration from 70% to 75% on the next go but need a short pizza-hiatus first.

1 Attachment

Fucken A look at those. 👌

I always do the pan + grill technique and I find hot but not scorching works well for me in the pan.

Still a must to have all the ingredients ready to go as you want to top it quite quickly, especially since I usually let the dough start the cook without any sauce for a little bit, which I feel helps with getting rid of moisture.

Had debated whether to make pizza tonight and tomorrow and now I feel like I have to. Will the hot weather make it possible for me to have a sourdough base ready for tonight? 🤔

If anyone finds themselves Thornton Heath/Norbury way, Sorrento Inn on the London Road is, IMHO, fantastic. Proper wood fired oven, great toppings. Around a tenner or less a go. For any locals, best to call and order for collection rather than deliveroo/uber eats as there are a lot of reviews about mangled pizzas from moped deliveries.

https://www.sorrentoin.com/

Cheers, it's a pretty substantial staub cast iron pan. Think I need to make some more pizzas and test stuff out.

It's annoying as early on we made some really good ones and have never been able to manage the same quality again.

Possibly a bit late now, but in this weather I've had good results with 0.25-0.5% active dried yeast and a ladle of sourdough starter (ideally active, but have had luck even straight from the fridge). I've been getting decent enough dough in 5-6 hours; not quite as good as multiple-day slow ferments, but more than acceptable results coming out of the Ooni.

Is there a specific recipe for the dough? I'm having difficulties to start as recipes for poolish pizza seem to differ a lot and those just look and probably also taste the way I'd want

I used the PizzApp calculator and went for:

290g dough balls
62% water, 3% salt
40% Poolish

If you plug that in based on the number of balls you need you'll get the quantities.

I made the Poolish and left for 12 hours. I then mixed it with the rest of the flour, salt and yeast and left it for 8 hours, I then balled and left for 4 hours so a 24hr prove in total.

It was super easy and definitely the best dough I've tried.

Thanks, I didn't know PizzApp has settings for poolish now. Will try your settings!
I'm thinking of renting a gas Ooni in August to have a pizza party and still need a nice dough.

I tried this recipe last weekend and it's really delish! But the dough was quite hard to form as it was still sticky and ripped easily.
Might it be because I used 65% water?

1 Attachment

Yeah the lower the hydration the easier it is to work with. I normally stick to 62-63%. I did a high hydration dough about a month back and although the end product was amazing it was a nightmare to launch and turn.

With higher hydration doughs I think the mixing, folding and balling techniques are more critical. Glad it tasted good though.

This week's effort, 75% hydration and long fermentation proved (ha) to be tricky but after scraping the first failure off the stone the next 4 turned out unexpectedly nice.

1 Attachment

What are your favourite pizzas lately?
I'm planning a pizza party in like 2 weeks and was thinking of figs, walnuts, ricotta and honey as one style next to regular tomato, mozzarella and stuff. Then I realised that figs are hard to get currently, so I'm looking for alternatives

You could use pears and Cambozola in the recipe you mentioned instead of figs and ricotta

We like scarmozza and mozzarella with broccoli, fennel sausage and chilli flakes.

If you can’t get fennel sausage just get normal ones, remove casing, roll into balls of meat and then shake with fennel seeds

I tend to briefly roast the broccoli and sausage together, allow to cool and then add to the pizza with the two cheeses.

One that went down really well with my niece and nephew last weekend was Nutella, hazelnuts and mozzarella. You can also add bananas.

Sounds great!
Also saw this post while looking for inspiration in this thread. Will definitely try one of those