Had my first go tonight and IT turned out ok. Thin crust, tasted good but was a bit stiff and chewy. I used strong white bread flour, some olive oil, dried active yeast, warm water and some sugar and salt.

The yeast wasn’t fizzing as I added it to the flour. Kneaded it a fair bit then let it sit and rise for an hour. Knocked the air out with more kneading.

Was definitely better than any supermarket pizza though and I reckon it won’t take much experimenting to get it like a takeaway pizza.

Delia my man.

Thing we have found crucial for pizza is have the oven as hot as Possible and heat it for like an hour before. Use a pizza stone if you can. They should be cooked in about 5 -6 mins

Definitely agree about the stone as it makes the base a lot more authentic. I would also suggest using semolina flour when rolling out the bases as this creates a really nice crispy texture to the base.

Ppl using a stone – are you putting the pizza directly on it or still on a baking tray? I’ve had mixed success trying to transfer a pizza loaded with ingredients directly onto the stone.

I use Claudia Roden’s recipe btw – seems to work well.

Trying to perfect it myself
I’ve just built a pizza oven in our garden, and it cooks a pizaa in 2 mins, but the base is the bit im trying to perfect
Got a good recipie from pizza forno, use oo pizza flour, it’s a lot better

Directly on the stone, and a 50:50 mix of semolina and bread flour.

The trick is lots of flour on the base and the tray you make it on so it doesn’t stick to anything, and not too much topping otherwise it goes soggy (and sticks).

yeah agreed about the flour on the base. Using less toppings means it cooks quicker and more evenly too.

Semolina (coarse polenta) in the mix, I do 10%. Good flour really makes the difference, my weekly pizza session has improved with shipton mill strong white and a good prove. Then have some fun throwing them to let centrifugal force make the crust, always land them on the back of the hand so your fingers don’t do through.
A tip I got from the local very good pizzeria (run by Italians – ‘Fat Tonis’ if you are ever in Stroud, Glos and want an amazing pizza) is to pre bake the base before topping, say 8 mins in a hot oven, take out give a little brush with oil on the crust, then load up, avoids a soggy centre. Using baking sheets Ive had good results with oiled or dry with a fine layer of coarse polenta.

I’ve tried Delia’s and Jamie Flatlipped Oliver’s I prefer the cheeky cockney’s.

Pizza stone in medium high hot oven till light goes out, simple dough as OP said. Build it on the stone and c8mins in the oven.

If you can use fresh yeast. Obviously not that cost effective for a single pizza though. It’s also better in a mixer with a dough whisk as the amount of kneading you need to do by hand is bloody hard work! Give it an hour to rise after preparing it, then press out your pizza base then give it another hour to sit then press it out again.

Would love to tell you exactly the proportions of ingredients for the perfect pizza dough – i used to make em for a living but it was 15 years and a lot of alcohol ago!

If you’re struggling loading the pizza onto the stone then you can buy handheld pizza slices for loading into the oven – roll the dough out, flour the slice lightly then build it on that and throw it in.

A decent piazzaiola helps with flavour too, not just tomato puree under the toppings.

some Vit C tablet (try 1/2 to begin with) to get the flour raised a bit more. I also use a bit of wholemeal flour to give some texture, and oatmeal on the base to stop the dough sticking at all..

I’ve been using Tesco Medium Chapatti Flour, after a recommendation for general bread making. We like the results anyway 😀

As above, fresh yeast makes a difference. Even though it’s only about 10p a cube I’ll make a double qty of dough for a loaf of bread as well, so as not to waste half the yeast, and to make use of the hot oven.

Pre bake the base for a few mins as well, unless you’re good at getting it really thin without tearing (I’m not so just do deep crust).

The biggest difference I’ve found recently is to cold ferment the doigh. First rise of 8-12 hours, knock it back and then 2-5 days in the fridge (for a Neapolitan style cruts using 00 flour). Onviously not convenient as it neds planning in advance but really improves the flavour, the rise at the edges and normally giving a nice char as well.

Hmm interesting, will try this for the weekend pizza.

Canadian strong flour from sainsburys, fast acting year, make the dough when you are happy, rest and roll thin.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html
This one from Peter Reinhart’s the Bread Bakers apprentice, no knocking back just a lot of leaving to wait.

Ppl using a stone – are you putting the pizza directly on it or still on a baking tray?

Yes put it directly on the stone and then put the sauce and toppings on…the stone should be so hot that it starts to cook it even while its out of the oven.

I use one of these to put the base on the stone. Its meant for cakes but its cheap and works well.

pizza peel thingy

Another vote for a semolina mix, I follow Jamie Oliver’s receipe and use 25% (I recall). As per @gav you must rest the dough properly (and you can freeze half) and if you roll it fairly thin you’ll get a better crust. Stone is very good but not essential as you can use a baking tray, its important the oven and tray and pre-heated, don’t skimp on pre-heating.

+etc for semolina when kneading and maybe up to 10% of mix. I also mix the dough as 1/3 ordinary plain flour and 2/3 strong flour.

Morrisons sell live yeast which makes for superb breads – much better texture than dried yeast,

My other, go to (quicker) recipe is a more Sicilain (deep pan) style that does need a stand mixer but doesn’t need any additional kneading and very little handling:

500g Plain Flour
10g/2 teaspoons salt
5g/1 teaspoon dried yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil

Whack all that in a stand mixer (with dough hooks attached), put it on low/medium until it all comes together and you’ve not got any dry flour left on the sides of the bowl, turn it up to medium high and leave it going until you can see it’s become stretchy, smooth and pliable, normally 5 minutes or so.

Pour at least two tablespoons of oil into a try (18″ x 12″ or so), you want there to be a layer of oil in the bottom of the tray so that it sort of fries the bottom of the pizza, put the dough in and rub the top with olive oil to coat, cover in cling film and let it rise until the dough touches or nearly touches the sides, normally a couple of hours (you can stretch it a little bit if need be)

Top it, put it in a rippingly hot oven (ideally something like 280c or as high as your oven goes) that’s been preheated for at least half an hour, it’ll take 15-20 minutes to bake and you must not open the door while it’s doing.

Good eats! 🙂

I also mix the dough as 1/3 ordinary plain flour and 2/3 strong flour.

Same for me although probably a little less plain, around 25%. Seems to help get the base a bit thinner.

A page of posts and no-one mentions sourdough yet?

Am disappoint.

Am going to get the sourdough out and have a go, now I’ve got a decent oven (multifunction microwave oven didn’t really have the temperature/heat capacity).

Here is the Jamie O receipe – note I always sieve the flour.

Jamie’s Pizza Dough

Note also his receipe for the tomato sauce using tinned toms, garlic and basil reduced down to be nice an intense is really simple and very good

some Vit C tablet (try 1/2 to begin with) to get the flour raised a bit more

Only works with some self raising flour’s, some raising agents are activated by the heat others by acidity, so adding vit C (citric acid) get’s them rising at the start of the bake (whereas the heat activated agents rise at the end).

I’ve never had much success with pizza stones, I think domestic ovens just don’t get hot enough for an authentic pizza flavour.

I currently make frying pan pizza. It’s the best method I’ve tried to get close to the pizzeria crust.

Personally I prefer the Jamie Oliver recipe & method. Generally fast active dried yeast does not fizz – apparently yeast technology has moved on in the past 20 years. I have been told that you can generally get fresh yeast from the sainsburys bread counter. Don’t put the yeast & salt next to each other – they retard each other. Brush the top of the dough with olive or rapeseed oil – prevents the dough going soggy from the toppings/sauce.
I put mine in an old dominos pizza tin (they were going to throw them away) – so thick based. In an oven I put mine on bread function 220 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. As a lot of people say less toppings is more.

More info and recipes than you can shake a bag of 00 at: pizzamaking.com

Proper geeky (a good thing).

“I’ve been working on getting a little more puffiness in the rim and have known that dough handling can make a difference. However, recently I’ve been pressing out my dough balls with more force and getting the dough to a good 8-9 inches on the counter before a quick 1-2 second stretch over the knuckles in the air and then on to the peel. I think it’s made a measurable difference in the cornicione. I’m sure this has been discussed on the board before but now I can confirm that it works. Here’s 4 pizzas I made over the weekend using this technique. 62% water, 2.8% salt, 1.5% starter, 48h rise at 65F lowered to 60F for the last 8 hours to adjust for a very active starter. Margherita with Calabrian chili oil, Bianco’s Rosa, black truffle and 4 mushroom, and pepperoni and poblano peppers.”

I use Jamie Olivers recipe but use Caputo 00 flour, cooked in a wood fired outdoor oven at 500 to 600 degrees C. Base as thin as possible with minimal toppings. Cooks in about 90 seconds.

Nothing better…in my opinion of course 😉

ive been searching for the ‘perfect’ recipe for years and have tried loads, currently using a kind of bastardized version of four or five recipes ive found worked well:

500g OO flour with 1/2 tspoon salt
260ml warm water with half packet of yeast & t/spoon of sugar
30ml olive oil
30ml milk

Chuck it all in the bowl mix it up, knead it until a spongy (but not sticky ball), put in bowl cover with warm wet towel, put in cupboard etc… until at least doubled but a few hours wont hut it.

Right now youve obviously got the topping you want but beware of mushroom they can give of a lot of liquid.

Tom sauce, get a can of decent plum tomatoes, crush them to release the pips and then blitz them until smooth (dont have to remove the pips but if they get broken upo they are very bitter)

Fast forward an hour or two, put a large flat pan (pref pancake pan) on till its very hot, put your grill on o max.

Split the dough into 4 roll into bases, place in pan, put on tom sauce, sprinkle with basil (dry is great) and parmesan (yep as well as mozerella), put on toppings and cheese.

This takes no more than a few minutes and the pizza will already be rising cooking, before the base starts burning out of the pan into the oven (on a stone if youve got one) and under the grill for the top to cook again a few minutes or it will burn very quickly.

Like I said Ive tried loads of recipes, this for me give the most authentic tasting pizza ive made.

If anyone has fancied a wood fired pizza oven but not the cost of a traditional build, I can highly recommend the uuni. Made of stainless steel and burning wood pellets, it’s a great compromise. Gets up to usable heat much quicker as well. By far the best pizza I’ve ever had.

Rusty Shackleford – thank you. That is exactly the sort of geekiness I’ve been looking for.

Now if anyone remembers the site where is tells you the optimum age of eggs for omelettes, scambled etc then I would be a very happy man

bigdawg – I’ve never been convinced about blitzing the sauce. It seems to end up with something that’s bitter if you overdo it because of the pips (as you mentioned) and it goes a weak colour. Cooking and the putting it all through a sieve seems to work better

My friends brother is the man behind these. Cook a pizza in 4 mins off the stove. I’ve seen it in action and its impressive, but pricy.
http://chadwickoven.com

Never had much success in the past with pizza bases so am adding a random comment to this thread so I can find it again the next time we try.