dank69
Lifer
- Oct 6, 2009
- 37,349
- 32,977
- 136
How long do you have to cook it in a skillet? I assume you don't preheat it? :hmm:
Fritzo
Lifer
- Jan 3, 2001
- 41,920
- 2,161
- 126
When you cruise these forums long enough, you'll slowly come to realize that a cast iron skillet is the solution for all of ATOT's cooking needs. :biggrin:
W.C. Nimoy
Senior member
- Apr 7, 2013
- 356
- 0
- 0
^not for me. Glass top now, so cast iron is strictly for cornbread & pizza duty now.
:|
Yeah preheat as much as you dare, depending on how well formed you get your crust vs. how much custom fitting you want to do. I at least try to "pinch" an edge at the top.
:|
Yeah preheat as much as you dare, depending on how well formed you get your crust vs. how much custom fitting you want to do. I at least try to "pinch" an edge at the top.
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
- 4,268
- 126
I'm making New York style pizza tomorrow, so I'm about to begin the dough. Since some are curious as to how it can be done I thought I'd post my way of doing things.
I highly recommend pizzamaking.com as a resource. Currently I'm using Tom Lehmann's formula for my dough. This is for 3 14" pizzas and the quantities of ingredients were provided by the calculator I had linked to in an earlier post. There are many possible variations with even a single formula. Here's examples.
Note the quantities are by weight and volume, however I recommend that anyone who bakes get a decent electronic scale accurate to 0.1g. They aren't that expensive and for some purposes weighing gives significant advantages for consistency.
Flour (100%): 783.04 g | 27.62 oz | 1.73 lbs
Water (63%): 493.32 g | 17.4 oz | 1.09 lbs
Instant Dry Yeast (0.2%): 1.57 g | 0.06 oz | 0 lbs | 0.52 tsp | 0.17 tbsp
Kosher Salt (2%): 15.66 g | 0.55 oz | 0.03 lbs | 3.26 tsp | 1.09 tbsp
Oil (2%): 15.66 g | 0.55 oz | 0.03 lbs | 3.48 tsp | 1.16 tbsp
Total (167.2%): 1309.24 g | 46.18 oz | 2.89 lbs | TF = 0.1
Single Ball: 436.41 g | 15.39 oz | 0.96 lbs
"Bakerspeak"- Note how there are percentages after the ingredients? That's to allow easier scaling to different quantities. Everything is based on flour normalized to 100%. When making breads (and pizza is a yeasted flatbread) the percentage of water plays a very important part and bakers will talk about hydration in percent. From above it's seen that this is a 63% hydration dough.
Flour selection is important. Lehmann dough and many others call for high gluten flour which contains 14+ percent protein. You will probably have to look around at specialty stores to find it as I've never seen it in a supermarket. There are other on line calculators which will determine how much vital wheat gluten (not to hard to find) to add to a particular flour to bring it up to the desired %. An easier way that works fairly well is to use King Arthur Bread Flour. I specify that because it's unusually high in protein, more than most common bread flours, and is perfectly acceptable. Why a high protein flour? Because pizza dough has to be worked by hand to be shaped. There are two qualities that one wants, which is elasticity or the ability to spring back and retain shape, and extensibility, which allows the dough to be stretched substantially without tearing. High gluten flour combined with a fairly high hydration gives you both. There are times when softer flours are used but much depends on the type of pizza and the temps you are baking with. That's more than I want to get into at the moment.
About hand kneading- yes you can do it. Dr. Pizza says he doesn't have to measure ingredients. I dare say that it's because he's done it over and over, more than most people, and certainly more than myself. For those who haven't that much experience you can learn to do what he does, but start by weighing everything out and see how it feels as you knead it. You'll have to do it often, which is why I don't. I use my Bosch Universal because I'm lazy
Here's the warning. Today's stand mixers are pretty crappy. They are perfectly fine for things like cakes or mashing potatoes, but when it comes to bread be careful. This dough will destroy many right off. You need one with a dough hook, and RTFM. You don't want to try to work with too much of a stiff dough and "quarts" refers to bowl size, not how full you can fill it. Follow the manufacturers recommendations and stand by the machine. Make a half recipe twice if you need to or invest in something which won't break like the Universal. PSA over.
The other alternative to mixers or hand kneading is a heavy duty food processor. I have an old Cuisinart 14 cup model that I've used, and it's quite good if it's not for too big a recipe. Again caveat emptor. If you have a cheap model you will break it.
OK throw everything into the mixer and go! Well no. You can do that and it will work, but there is something you can do which will produce a superior product, and that's wait. Specifically, add the water and all other ingredients except flour and salt to the bowl (you'll want the water warm, but not hot) then add the flour in batches and mix until it's all incorporated. Then turn it off and walk away. 20-30 minutes come back and add the salt while the mixer is running. Why do this? It's called an "autolyse" and the purpose is to give the protein adequate time to absorb the water. That allows a better knead in less time and the end product has better workability and baking qualities. You add the salt after the autolyse because it inhibits absorption.
Now mix away. Usually this will take 5 to 8 minutes, but because of machine and quantity variations it might take somewhat longer. Most bakers use the "window pane" test to see if the dough has been kneaded enough. That's where you stretch the dough as thin as it will go before tearing. You should be able to get it thin enough to become fairly translucent. Tom Lehmann however suggests that this isn't appropriate to pizza proper and reaching that stage is really overworking the dough. Instead you want the dough to rebound when you push it in, and be able to stretch it fairly thin and be somewhat translucent, but you aren't going for paper thin.
Once done divide the batch into however many dough balls you are after and place into an oiled zip lock bag and put into the fridge overnight or up to a few days. There's a lot of biochemical goodness going on with the yeast and flour, but if it's left at room temperature gas formation dominates the process. You would burn through the yeast before the best qualities of the dough are formed. Refrigeration takes care of that.
Remove about 1-1/2 hours before baking and let rest. The dough will warm and rise. You'll probably have to put each ball into a properly sized bowl so make sure to cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a moist tea towel so it doesn't dry out.
About an hour before baking I turn the oven on to 525 (500-550 is generally used) so the stones have a chance to absorb the heat and come up to temp.
Build your pizza and load into the oven!
Bon appetite
I highly recommend pizzamaking.com as a resource. Currently I'm using Tom Lehmann's formula for my dough. This is for 3 14" pizzas and the quantities of ingredients were provided by the calculator I had linked to in an earlier post. There are many possible variations with even a single formula. Here's examples.
Note the quantities are by weight and volume, however I recommend that anyone who bakes get a decent electronic scale accurate to 0.1g. They aren't that expensive and for some purposes weighing gives significant advantages for consistency.
Flour (100%): 783.04 g | 27.62 oz | 1.73 lbs
Water (63%): 493.32 g | 17.4 oz | 1.09 lbs
Instant Dry Yeast (0.2%): 1.57 g | 0.06 oz | 0 lbs | 0.52 tsp | 0.17 tbsp
Kosher Salt (2%): 15.66 g | 0.55 oz | 0.03 lbs | 3.26 tsp | 1.09 tbsp
Oil (2%): 15.66 g | 0.55 oz | 0.03 lbs | 3.48 tsp | 1.16 tbsp
Total (167.2%): 1309.24 g | 46.18 oz | 2.89 lbs | TF = 0.1
Single Ball: 436.41 g | 15.39 oz | 0.96 lbs
"Bakerspeak"- Note how there are percentages after the ingredients? That's to allow easier scaling to different quantities. Everything is based on flour normalized to 100%. When making breads (and pizza is a yeasted flatbread) the percentage of water plays a very important part and bakers will talk about hydration in percent. From above it's seen that this is a 63% hydration dough.
Flour selection is important. Lehmann dough and many others call for high gluten flour which contains 14+ percent protein. You will probably have to look around at specialty stores to find it as I've never seen it in a supermarket. There are other on line calculators which will determine how much vital wheat gluten (not to hard to find) to add to a particular flour to bring it up to the desired %. An easier way that works fairly well is to use King Arthur Bread Flour. I specify that because it's unusually high in protein, more than most common bread flours, and is perfectly acceptable. Why a high protein flour? Because pizza dough has to be worked by hand to be shaped. There are two qualities that one wants, which is elasticity or the ability to spring back and retain shape, and extensibility, which allows the dough to be stretched substantially without tearing. High gluten flour combined with a fairly high hydration gives you both. There are times when softer flours are used but much depends on the type of pizza and the temps you are baking with. That's more than I want to get into at the moment.
About hand kneading- yes you can do it. Dr. Pizza says he doesn't have to measure ingredients. I dare say that it's because he's done it over and over, more than most people, and certainly more than myself. For those who haven't that much experience you can learn to do what he does, but start by weighing everything out and see how it feels as you knead it. You'll have to do it often, which is why I don't. I use my Bosch Universal because I'm lazy
Here's the warning. Today's stand mixers are pretty crappy. They are perfectly fine for things like cakes or mashing potatoes, but when it comes to bread be careful. This dough will destroy many right off. You need one with a dough hook, and RTFM. You don't want to try to work with too much of a stiff dough and "quarts" refers to bowl size, not how full you can fill it. Follow the manufacturers recommendations and stand by the machine. Make a half recipe twice if you need to or invest in something which won't break like the Universal. PSA over.
The other alternative to mixers or hand kneading is a heavy duty food processor. I have an old Cuisinart 14 cup model that I've used, and it's quite good if it's not for too big a recipe. Again caveat emptor. If you have a cheap model you will break it.
OK throw everything into the mixer and go! Well no. You can do that and it will work, but there is something you can do which will produce a superior product, and that's wait. Specifically, add the water and all other ingredients except flour and salt to the bowl (you'll want the water warm, but not hot) then add the flour in batches and mix until it's all incorporated. Then turn it off and walk away. 20-30 minutes come back and add the salt while the mixer is running. Why do this? It's called an "autolyse" and the purpose is to give the protein adequate time to absorb the water. That allows a better knead in less time and the end product has better workability and baking qualities. You add the salt after the autolyse because it inhibits absorption.
Now mix away. Usually this will take 5 to 8 minutes, but because of machine and quantity variations it might take somewhat longer. Most bakers use the "window pane" test to see if the dough has been kneaded enough. That's where you stretch the dough as thin as it will go before tearing. You should be able to get it thin enough to become fairly translucent. Tom Lehmann however suggests that this isn't appropriate to pizza proper and reaching that stage is really overworking the dough. Instead you want the dough to rebound when you push it in, and be able to stretch it fairly thin and be somewhat translucent, but you aren't going for paper thin.
Once done divide the batch into however many dough balls you are after and place into an oiled zip lock bag and put into the fridge overnight or up to a few days. There's a lot of biochemical goodness going on with the yeast and flour, but if it's left at room temperature gas formation dominates the process. You would burn through the yeast before the best qualities of the dough are formed. Refrigeration takes care of that.
Remove about 1-1/2 hours before baking and let rest. The dough will warm and rise. You'll probably have to put each ball into a properly sized bowl so make sure to cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a moist tea towel so it doesn't dry out.
About an hour before baking I turn the oven on to 525 (500-550 is generally used) so the stones have a chance to absorb the heat and come up to temp.
Build your pizza and load into the oven!
Bon appetite
surfsatwerk
Lifer
- Mar 6, 2008
- 10,110
- 5
- 81
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
- 4,268
- 126
OBLAMA2009
Diamond Member
- Apr 17, 2008
- 6,574
- 3
- 0
i went to a make-yur-own-pizza party once. i was under the impression you had to have an 800 degree oven to make good pizza but i guess not, it was pretty good but had to be cooked for 40 minutes, and if it takes that long its just easier for someone like me, who lives in a city, to buy pizza at one of the millions of restaurants.
one time i went to a museum cafeteria and they make pizza but putting canned pizza sauce and mozzerella on french bread and them putting it in a salamander. it was actually really good, i considered trying at home, but then i dont like cleaning up messes....
so in conclusion, for me its hard to justify making my own pizza...
one time i went to a museum cafeteria and they make pizza but putting canned pizza sauce and mozzerella on french bread and them putting it in a salamander. it was actually really good, i considered trying at home, but then i dont like cleaning up messes....
so in conclusion, for me its hard to justify making my own pizza...
dank69
Lifer
- Oct 6, 2009
- 37,349
- 32,977
- 136
Yeah, that's why I was wondering how long it takes to cook. You can't really preheat the skillet if you want to press in the dough, but it would take at least ten minutes in a ~500F oven for the skillet to even get up to temp with the pizza already in it. I'd have to guess it might take ~1/2 hour or more to cook.
child of wonder
Diamond Member
- Aug 31, 2006
- 8,307
- 176
- 106
Fritzo
Lifer
- Jan 3, 2001
- 41,920
- 2,161
- 126
French bread pizza is a classic
You can make an awesome pizza sub by adding pepperoni, italian ham, salami, and banana peppers to that.
Fritzo
Lifer
- Jan 3, 2001
- 41,920
- 2,161
- 126
Scarpozzi
Lifer
- Jun 13, 2000
- 26,391
- 1,780
- 126
I like using my cast iron skillet to make deep dish too. Grease the sides and bottom with crisco, preheat to like 425 or 450 depending on your oven....load the pizza upside down with the sauce on top.
I usually do crust on the bottom, up the sides....layer of thin provolone, pepperoni, peppers, onions, black olives, mozzerella, pepperoni, onions, peppers, mozzerella, and sauce. Make sure you have a little crushed red pepper flake in your sauce to give it a kick.
I like that with italian sausage, but don't typically make it like that anymore because my wife isn't a fan of the fennel italian sausage typically has in it.
I usually do crust on the bottom, up the sides....layer of thin provolone, pepperoni, peppers, onions, black olives, mozzerella, pepperoni, onions, peppers, mozzerella, and sauce. Make sure you have a little crushed red pepper flake in your sauce to give it a kick.
I like that with italian sausage, but don't typically make it like that anymore because my wife isn't a fan of the fennel italian sausage typically has in it.
W.C. Nimoy
Senior member
- Apr 7, 2013
- 356
- 0
- 0
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO!" The dough protects you, where the skillet is hot enough that it instantly browns your corn meal, but you can still touch it enough through the dough. I don't know what your idea of pressing in the dough is though. I don't want to get anyone burned.
dank69
Lifer
- Oct 6, 2009
- 37,349
- 32,977
- 136
I just mean putting the dough in and getting it to all the sides. I can see myself burning the shit out of my fingers with a 500 degree skillet.
Bottom of pizza would probably burn by the time I got all the sauce and toppings on there the way I like it, too. The curse of OCD cooking... 
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
Born2bwire
Diamond Member
- Oct 28, 2005
- 9,840
- 6
- 71
I do not preheat the pan and it only takes 12-15 minutes for mine. If the crust lacks a little in the golden brown, I just finish it off out of the oven on a burner. Works wonderfully.
I am making pizza tonight. Crust for two twenty inch pizzas.
in a large warmed crockery bowl
1 1/2 c. warm water
1 c. King Arthur whole wheat flour for the nutty taste
1 t. brown sugar
1 heaping tb. yeast
mix and let it bloom
mix in
1/2 t. salt
two eggs
1/3 c. olive oil
1/4 c sesame seeds
add white bread flour til it forms a ball, grease and let it rise for an hour
sauce is home made
hamburger is home grown
freezer is full of quart bags of fully ripe red sliced peppers
Jaskalas
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2004
- 35,746
- 10,051
- 136
Prep the crust, 400(f)
Fully assembled, 425(f)
Wouldn't say that's even attempting professional.
z1ggy
Lifer
- May 17, 2008
- 10,010
- 66
- 91
This. My pizza's came out Okay, but I can't compete with the NY style stuff that I can get down by the city. It's just freaking delicious.
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