/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>7208815
>What am I doing wrong?

1. No pizza stone or pizza steel. These help transfer heat directly to the pizza, and should be used by anyone that is serious about making decent home pizza.

2. Oven not pre-heated as high as you can go....including use of the broiler. Max that baby out for 45 mins and crank on the broiler for the last 15 mins. You should be using this time to not only heat your oven, but your stone / steel, as well.

3. Not using the broiler technique to cook your pizza. Most ovens have a broiler element on top of the oven, and this is what you want to use to cook your pizza. Place your oven rack, with your stone / steel on it, as close as you can get to the broiler while still being able to slide your pizza in and out. Use pots, if you have to, to elevate that stone / steel so it's like 4-5 inches from the broiler.

4. Not using room temp dough, toppings, and sauce before topping and cooking your pizza. Pull out your dough, your toppings, and your sauce, and place them on your oven as it pre-heats in order to bring them all up to room temp before you top your pizza. Never try to cook your pizza if it's cold.

5. Not using a spray bottle to control crust cooking while under the broiler. Take a spray bottle and spray down your crust when you slide the pizza on the stone under the broiler. This way, the center and bottom will have a chance to cook before the crust does.

6. Not cracking the oven door to keep the broiler element on during cooking. Once you pre-heat your oven with the broiler, the thermostat will turn off the broiler once it gets to a certain temp. To prevent this, crack open the oven door and wait for the broiler element to heat up, spray your crust, and then slide the pizza on the pre-heated stone / steel which is directly under the broiler. Observe the pizza through the crack, and rotate it at about the 2 min mark, and respray the crust if needed. It should only take about 6 mins total to cook.

>>7194976

Here you go nigger.

Pizza Dough Recipe by percentages:
Flour 100
Water 62
Salt 1.25
Sugar 1.5
Yeast .375

Weight by gram.
Flour: 400
Water: 248
Yeast: 1.5
Salt: 5
Sugar: 6

Note the use of grams, because volumetric measurements are ass.

You can use AP or bread flour.

This dough is fairly highly hydrated, but DON'T add any additional flour, because it's supposed to be.

Knead this bitch until silky smooth. Let it rest for an hour or so, and then divide in half and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before you use.

This produces an excellent dough that can be used for Jew York pies, Neapolitans, or thin crust.

Pizza sauce...

Make it with can plum tomatoes, and crush them by hand or use a fork, as a processor can make them too runny. San Marzano are the go to tomatoes, but you can use any canned plum tomato, or even use tomato puree.

Basic Neapolitan sauce - tomatoes, salt to taste.

Basic American sauce - tomatoes, olive oil, oregano, salt, pepper.

Other ingredients commonly used: basil, rosemary, red pepper flake.

Make your measurements by taste, and you'll be fine.

There's no need to heat and cook this sauce, but you can if you feel like you must.

Sauce is easy, anon.

Straight up Neopolitan pizza is simply peeled and crushed San Marzano tomatoes with some salt....and that's it.

Pic related is a pretty popular brand you might be able to find in a store, and all you do is pull out the tomatoes and simply crush them with your hand until they are the consistency of your liking. They need to be thin enough to spread easy, but thick enough not to make your pizza soupy. Can't find those, than just buy some tomato puree in a can and use that.

I use it straight from the can after crushing, spoon it on my dough, and simply sprinkle it with salt, and any other spices I might be in the mood for at the moment. I don't even measure, but just take a pinch of say, oregano, and sprinkle it over the sauce, and it comes out delicious. Of course, you could premix it in a bowl, too. If you want spices, go with salt, oregano, dried basil, black pepper, and rosemary can add a great touch. Of course there's always garlic too, but I just slice up close and put them right on the pizza as is....

Regardless, the hard part about a pizza is the dough, but you can use any all purpose flour and come out with a great dough if you experiment with your recipe, ratios, and fermentation times.

Best of luck.