I’ve been doing this for a while, but it’s a problem I’ve never solved. Dunno if it’s my crust recipe or something I need to do during construction.
The recipe is as follows:
- 1c water, 120°F
- 1 packet dry active yeast (2.25tsp)
- 1Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2Tbsp olive oil
- 3.5C white flour
- 1tsp salt
- Mix the yeast and sugar in the warm water, wait to bloom
- Add everything else and mix into dough.
- Knead, proof
- Roll out, transfer to pan
- Second proof (optional)
- Preheat oven to 425°F
- Construct pizza with favorite toppings
- Bake at 425°F for 15min or until cheese is sufficiently browned
Step 7 usually has jarred marinara, meats (except pepperoni), spices, and cheese, and all the veggies (and pepperoni) go on top.
Still, the very middle part of the pizza ends up a little doughy, just where the sauce meets the crust. The outside of the pizza is just fine, but the only thing I can think is that the sauce is adding too much water. Do I need to add a layer of oil before the sauce, or should I try to reduce the sauce before adding it? Should I reduce the temp and increase the time?
Thanks!
Edit: Everyone has had some great ideas. I’ll have plenty to try!
I’ve never eaten good pizza out of a household oven, so I’ve bought an electric pizza oven for 200 Eur.
By weight I use 60% of water compared to the flour (i. e. 500g of high protein pizza flour to 300g of water), 7g of salt and a very low amount of dry yeast. Overnight proofing in the fridge, next day I ball the dough (around 270g per pizza) and let it proof at room temp for a few hours.
Baking 3 minutes at 400°C (740F)
The investment for the oven has well paid off, as I don’t order any pizza to my home, anymore. You can freeze dough balls or use more yeast for “same day dough”.
Edit: Ah what nobody mentioned in the other comments (I think): The choice of flour makes a huuuuuge difference. Use pizza flour or at least a high protein flour (which has at least 12% of protein)
You could get pretty good results with a pizza steel. Crank the oven to max and preheat the steel for about an hour. Then you get 2 pizzas with leoparding on the bortom. After that the heat in the steel is gone and they do not turn out so great anymore.
Also depends a lot on the oven. Incidentially today I bought a (used) new one (after I found it in local listings for 50 Eur - and sold off my old one for 30 Eur).
The old one goes to 260C, the new one gets to 300C. No way to make decent pizza in the old one (I tried) , but with the new one and a steel I’d have a chance.
I’m with you, here. I sometimes do a 1:3 whole wheat to white all-purpose flour. However, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of pizza flour or high protein flour (that isn’t terrible for baking bread, anyway). What kind/brand do you use? I might be able to find an equivalent.
And thanks for sharing the weights you use. My recipe is a family one, and I should probably take some time to convert mine. Might help me find where extra water is coming from.
I’m German so I have good access to Italian flour, for Pizza I use Caputo Pizzeria (for which I pay Eur 2.50 per kg). I order a few packages online.
Typical supermarket flour here has a lower protein content - so it can hold less water.
The Caputo is about 3 times the price of supermarket flour, but 1kg of flour is 6 (round) pizzas, so the difference is a few cent per pizza.
Check youtube for good information - damn, I forget the name of the channel, it’s a married couple showing Italian cuisine , he’s American she’s Italian. They have a video how they make the rectangular pizza in the household oven.
This is crazy, chatgpt just found what I was looking for from roughly the above description:
https://www.pastagrammar.com/post/authentic-italian-pan-pizza-in-teglia-recipe