Share Your Best Pizza Dough...

[FrenchTart]

Fairly sure I used to use greaseproof when I did this but I'll go check The stone has to be extremely hot for it to work without sticking though.

@jpaul - you leave the base on the paper whilst it cooks, removing it only once you've taken the pizza back out of the oven.

It's obviously not as pro as doing things properly but the results are very good for the effort involved.

 

[jpaul]

ok gotcha
..... they are a well read bunch those other pizza makers
parchment paper safe at 500 degrees? albeit it is a bit above us.

You're going to have a hard time finding any paper, silicone impregnated or not, that can be used above 450°F. If you aren't familiar with the book, "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, it was named such because paper begins to burn at 451°F. Most all the non-stick polymers out there (e.g. Teflon, silicone) begin to break down around 500°F, so if you're wanting to use parchment paper because of its non-stick properties, you're going to run into trouble finding any non-paper alternatives to replace it too. Your best option if you don't care about non-stick properties, and you just want something that acts as a flexible carrier for your pizza, may be to use ceramic paper. Cotronics is where I get a lot of my ceramic supplies in this category. It isn't cheap, but you could probably use the same piece over and over again.

 

[oneilldo]

So I've just took delivery of a UUNI 2S pizza oven. I need to put it together tomorrow and maybe ignite it for the first time on Sat/Sun. Any advice for the first cook. Is 24hr in the fridge sufficient for the dough as I could make some tomorrow?
Should I go for the serious eats New York style one or any other recommendations. The pizzas will need to be small (just lots of them)

 

[FrenchTart]

You'll want to go for a Neapolitan style to get the most out of your Uuni

24 hour dough is sufficient though you'll get better results with longer so make some today if you can. As it's Neapolitan go for just flour, water, salt and years with a 65% hydration.

 

[oneilldo]

Will make some today and get cooking tomorrow then.
Got to construct it first but shouldn't be too hard

 

[s-man]

So I've just took delivery of a UUNI 2S pizza oven. I need to put it together tomorrow and maybe ignite it for the first time on Sat/Sun. Any advice for the first cook. Is 24hr in the fridge sufficient for the dough as I could make some tomorrow?
Should I go for the serious eats New York style one or any other recommendations. The pizzas will need to be small (just lots of them)

I got mine about a month ago...you'll love it there is a learning curve and a definite sweet spot in terms of cooking, topping up the wood chips and rapid cooling but it's a great thing...I've had pizza every weekend since it arrived and they've always been 'good' but some have been absolutely exceptional! There's definitely a strong case for 5 day dough...the flavour is just on another level but same day dough has also worked fine so don't sweat it...just make another batch of dough on Sunday for next weekend

Post initial firing and heat up the first pizza will cook REALLY quickly...we're talking 30 seconds and check/rotate. 90 seconds is plenty for the first one I find with each successive pizza taking slightly longer until by number 5 it's cooled too much and it takes (relatively) ages..don't worry though it'll still be nice

Most of all make sure you have a production line type approach and eat as soon as they're out and cut...you're going to love it

Enjoy!

 

[FrenchTart]

Kind of feel I've lost my pizza mojo a bit lately. They're still good but they're definitely lacking a little - mostly my dough handling skills to be honest. Though I think part of it is being stuck using particularly blah store-branded flour....and not planning in advance so always making dough on the day.

Now I've written that down it seems pretty obvious why things have been sucking. I guess I just need to suck it up and sort that out

 

[f00b4r]

Kind of feel I've lost my pizza mojo a bit lately. They're still good but they're definitely lacking a little - mostly my dough handling skills to be honest. Though I think part of it is being stuck using particularly blah store-branded flour....and not planning in advance so always making dough on the day.

Now I've written that down it seems pretty obvious why things have been sucking. I guess I just need to suck it up and sort that out

Noooo say it isn't so!
I also am bad for not making dough until that morning or the night before, I am not sure why as I meal plan and it is soon much better when made well ahead (and freezes well if you want to make a big batch and then just take it out as and when).
Got my pizza steel now though so think I might test it out on the Weber.

 

[Chonky]

Made some dought last week but could only leave it in the fridge for 3 days. Still made 3 good pizza's . The best pic I took, although not the best pizza (one edge not cooked quite so well). Toppings were salami, serrano, mozzarella and basil:

 

[TechMinerUK]

Wow, those look mighty tasty.

I had a go last week using the new methods (Don't worry, the rolling pin was locked away). I saturated the dough in plain flour before working it and it was much nicer however I still cant get the prominent crust, do I need to pat down the middle anymore than I do already or do I need to make the crust thicker?

 

[PlacidCasual]

So I eventually made the leap and have bought myself an Uuni2S. Had I any confidence I'd be sticking in my current home for 5+years I would have built a brick based pizza oven but an interim Uuni2S seemed like a good idea.

So I only used a basic bread machine pizza dough. Stretched it out with some seized tomatoes and mozzarella. The first one was burnt badly the edge puffed up a lot and caught on the flame running across the roof. The second didn't slide off the peel properly, not enough flour, and made a horrible mess on the stone. Temperature was too low for the third so it cooked slowly and the dough puffed up a lot but still tasty. Fourth one under cooked a bit. Next day hit the ground running and apart from a little scorching delivered some nice pizzas. Needed to turn the pizzas 180 degrees at 2/3 cook time to ensure good even cook.

Very different beast to the type of pizza we normally cook, the crust is a thing of wonder when right. Enjoying the Uuni2S and it's not too faffy. Might buy an extra peel though so I can up the throughput and save on fuel by having less dead time.

 

[FrenchTart]

Just put 6 65% hydration dough balls in the fridge. Sadly they're only going to get 2 days to mature and I'm also really out of practice so I've made 6 dough balls with the intention of making 2 or 3 practice bases. Hopefully by the end of the night I'll have remembered how to stretch properly and cook in the pizza oven...

 

[jpaul]

evangilism : with the sourdough starter life style you are obliged to propagate the next generation once a week ... and thus make pizza dough once a week, and hence improve to attain pizza Nirvana
(OK aided by a Panasonic bread machine)

 

[FrenchTart]

Whelp..today's the day I start practising my pizza skills again. I've got all 6 dough balls finishing their second rise, ready to be cooked in the electric pizza oven later.

edit: no pics but worked out relatively well.

I accidentally added too much flour (which I later accounted for with my hydration percentage but ignored with regards to number of dough balls). As such, each ball was 150g of flour rather than 125g iirc. Quite a substantial difference and meant that the bases had to be made thicker than ideal as otherwise the pizza ended up being too big for the electric oven.

However, hydration percentage of the dough was perfect @ 65%. Taste was great for dough that was only 2 days old and I managed to get a perfect underside with regards to leoparding. The top wasn't quite so perfect - partly due to me being overly cautious with flour and partly because my thermostat mod isn't perfect and by the 4th pizza it was starting to kick in. I just touched up the ones that weren't decently cooked on top with my Searzall though.

Definitely feel it wouldn't be hard to get back to where I was at. I just need to a) make less pizza at once (or fix my thermostat mod) and b) now I've got a bit more confidence again, dial down the flour added during the base shaping phase. I'm pretty pleased the bottom of the pizza didn't taste too floury though.

Completely random thought: I wonder if using a pre-hydrated starch for dusting would mean you'd get less of the 'raw flour' taste that you sometimes get when you go OTT with dusting. An article on cooking issues made me think about this recently. I haven't researched into it any further than that.

 

[FrenchTart]

Failed to get a pic but I just made a pizza in the regular oven (with the pizza steel) and tried the ChefSteps technique of pre-toasting the dusting flour. Definitely recommended. Probably the best pizza I've made in quite a while to be honest, though not just because of that technique.

 

[jpaul]

Ok had to google Searzall was expecting one of those industrial flame throwers for removing roofing tar ... a creme brule'sque solution though.

Although earlier discussion suggested semolina for dusting, I still use polenta (like Dominoes apparently so in bad company) and I think this does not impart a bad taste if some of it is raw , it quickly gets toasted on the stone, and is only on the base (I do not flip base as I prepare it)

 

[FrenchTart]

To add some more information to my post above...

The pre-toasting flour step is great for covering certain "sins" whilst making pizza. If you over-flour (which currently I'm guilty of due to being a bit out of practice) the detrimental effects of raw flour are far worse than pre-toasted. That is really the main reason I recommend pre-toasting.

 

[jpaul]

This thread needs a re-boot, or is everyone on a diet

last nights weekly sourdough pizza, jalapeno, chorizo
have simplified production a bit using crushed up Celio tomatoes on base, as opposed to pre-prepared sweated onion/celery/tomatoe mix, also some paprika added to base dough

Also food on TV ....
Mr Hollywoods city bakes
Chef movie (was it Sunday night) lots of gratuituous food porn combined in a father/son road movie with good latin music (long time since I saw babettes feast, but food in chef is better)
now need to find recipe for a cubinos, the beignets at cafe du monde New orleans, definitely looked like one for the bucket list too

 

[ci_newman]

I'm still making a pizza every week, but I usually forget to take a photo. In fact I have some dough in the fridge to make pizza tonight and I have a jar of jalapeno in the cupboard

 

[FrenchTart]

Still making regularly here too but I'm very lax about pics. Making heavy use of my pizza steel atm - the electric pizza oven has fallen out of favour mostly because I'm greedy and want to make bigger pizzas than it can accommodate.