A Guide to Homemade Pizza

By Nicole

{image credit: Dinner Diary}

I first made homemade pizza dough a little over a year ago. I had been intimidated by yeast and kneading and the process just sounded like too much work. Not to mention, take-out pizza is cheap, easy and always available and for some reason, it almost always hits the spot.  But in the spirit of tackling cooking challenges, I decided to give it a go. It was a hit. It remains one of my favorite meals for guests due to the level of ease and the price point. 

Over the last year of making pizza, I've had a few hits and misses and thought I share what I've learned:

Dough

• The best, easiest, beginner's dough - Smitten Kitchen's really simple pizza dough is, in fact, really simple. It's nice, it doesn't make a ton, and it's the perfect recipe to try for your first venture into baking pizza dough
• Whole wheat dough - I still have not found a whole wheat dough that I like. I attribute this to kneading it by hand and just not being able to get the texture right. If you're making pizza by hand for the first time, I would suggest not doing whole wheat. If you have a great recipe to share, please (please!) share.
• The never-fail dough - Alton Brown's dough is great. His directions are straightforward and easy to manage. You do have to make it the night before, so. 
• Really great dough if you like to follow directions - Peter Reinhardt's no-knead dough really is good, but it's a little fussy in its approach. If you follow all of the directions, you will really end up with good dough. If you only follow the bare minimum of the directions (um, mix, let rise overnight in the fridge and then take out two hours before baking), you'll still end up with really good pizza. Also, you're my kind of person. 
• Freezing - the dough freezes very well. I like to shape it into individual pies, flash freeze and then drop into a gallon-sized Ziploc bag until I'm ready to use them. When I'm ready, I simply take the frozen dough shell and top it with whatever toppings I'm using and pop into the oven. It may take an extra minute to bake. Quick and easy. 

Baking

• Pizza stone - You don't need a pizza stone. Sure, it might be nice if you had one, but it's not the only way to make a pizza. Often, ceramic stones become brittle and break after a few uses. I know many people swear by FribraMent but it's not a purchase I've made yet. I use the back of a half sheet pan and works just fine.
• Crispy crust - always cook your pizza with the bottom rack on the lowest setting to get the crispiest crust. 
• Temperature - Many recipes call for temperatures of 500 or 550 degrees. A number of ovens don't go this high but don't worry, 450 or 475 will work just fine. If you feel you need a little extra heat, with your pizza on the lowest rack, you can turn on the broiler for a little oomph.
• Smoke detector - There's a good chance your oven doesn't spend a lot of time working in the 450-550 degree range. As such, it's going to burn off some extra stuff that's been hanging around in there and your smoke detector will go off. Not a big problem, just something to be aware of. The more often you cook pizza, the less frequently it will happen. 

Toppings

There are many, many great ways to top pizza. Be as creative as you can possibly stand it. Here are some combinations that have been hits for me:

• Olive oil + shaved asparagus + mozzarella + Parmesan
• Mushrooms + pickled onions + cambozola + rosemary
• Goat cheese + honey
• Spinach + roasted red peppers + mozzarella
• Spinach + ricotta +mozzarella
• Chicken sausage + red sauce + goat cheese
• Pesto + red peppers + goat cheese

Give homemade pizza dough a try. It will be nicely rewarding. If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them. I'm not an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like some good pizza. 

Comments

[Dawn K.]

For freezing the dough, is that just for the last recipe mentioned, or all of them? This is perfect timing, as pizza is on my meal plan for this weekend and I've been trying to find easy homemade dough to test!

[Nic]

Dawn,
You can freeze all of the recipes equally well. I've done it with all three, actually!

[Jennie]

Great great great post!

[Christy]

Alton Brown's recipe is my favorite and was my weekly go-to recipe for a few months. His pizza sauce is amazing too.

[sarah marie p]

Thanks for the inspiration! :)

http://sarahmariep.blogspot.com/2011/01/smitten-over-our-oh-so-yummy-pizza.html

[True Religion Outlet]

While I can wish for luck, I believe the saying that luck is when preparedness and opportunity meet, so I thought I’d share a few ideas in this week’s blog to help you be prepared for the opportunity when luck bestows itself on you.