is greaseproof affecting my pizza base?

tdh

Hi,
I make homemade pizzas about once a month. I have this pizza stone. I always preheat the oven for about an hour at full power (its a good oven) before i put the pizza in.
I usually cut a piece of greaseproof paper and put flour on it and work my dough into shape and add the topping. Then I get a big cutting board and slide the paper with the pizza on it onto that and onto the stone. after about 5 mins I spin the pizza so its baked evenly and slide out the grease paper as the dough is cooked enough not to stick.
The outer crust of my pizza is generally just about to over cook when i take the pizza out but the base is never crisp. any ideas/?:p thanks

Toto Wolfcastle

Yep, that's definitely a problem. Obviously it makes it easier to put the pizza on the stone but it wont help in any way with the cooking. The dough starts to cook as soon as it hits the hot stone so the paper is just a barrier. I just whip the stone out and quickly assemble the pizza on it before putting it back in the oven but I know other people assemble it on a flat baking tray and slide it on. Or you could see if you could get a pizza peel.

adrianshanahan

Hey,

I'm an avid baker and pizzia is a quick and easy favorite. What recipe are you using for your dough?

I've used all sorts of ways to get that real Itallian pizza finish and to be honest most home ovens are just not capable of getting the heat right and in the right places. Even with the use of a pizza stone. The simplest, quickest and without doubt the easiest way I've found is to never use the oven and use the pan and grill method. You get perfect results every time as you can really target the heat.



Make and prove your dough as you normally would. Roll our your dough to the size of your largest heavy bottom frying pan.Turn your grill on to high, get your pan up really hot with no oil on it. put a tiny drop of oil on the pan and rub it around with some kitchen towel.

Carefully put your rolled out pizza base on the hot pan and leave it until it starts to bubble up. you can keep and eye on the bottom to get it just right. once the base is done take it off the heat and put your sauce / toppings on the pizza while still in the pan.

Then pop it under the grill for 5mins until done, this gives the best results I've ever gotten.

Sounds strange but well worth it.

hardCopy

I heat the pre-heat the stone for about 25 minutes.

While it's heating I roll out my dough on the counter top, again dusted with semolina.

Remove the stone from the oven, use a rolling pin to gather the base and roll it onto the hot stone. (Dust the rolling pin with flour and roll the pizza base around the rolling pin, then unroll it onto the stone)

Then top the pizza and return the stone to the oven.

The semolina stops everything sticking and gives you a little maneuverability (sp?) when dropping the base onto the hot stone, otherwise it sticks instantly to the stone. It's also dead easy to pick up the pizza when serving and less baked on crust to pick off afterwards.

Thud

learn to use a peel or baking tray as a peel, theres no substitute for it. use rice flour (burns less) on the peel to prevent sticking, put toppings on quickly and give peel a shake every so often to check it hasn't stuck, if it has stuck lift up and put some flour under it.

stevenmu

I spotted this recipe for pan pizza on reddit recently (it's originally from this site which is worth a further look too). It looks great and hard to get wrong, so I'll be giving it a go soon.

At the moment I use a thin baking tray lined with tin-foil and a very thin coat of oil. The benefit is that it's very easy to roll out the dough into the perfect shape to fit in, add your sauce/toppings and dump the lot in a hot oven. Rectangular pizza is surprisingly delicious. And, it cooks perfectly as long as the dough is good and thin. If it's in any way thick you run into the same problem, the edges are going crispy while the middle is still a little doughy.

Dizzyblonde

That pan pizza looks amazing!

bonkey

Another pitfall is the topping itself

It's really easy to use too much passata (or whatever you use as a tomato base), which will also result in a soggy base...except at the edges where you have less sauce.

unkel

The very reason for using the stone is that it is porous an dry and it takes moisture away from the pizza base (thus crisping it up). So don't put anything between the stone and the pizza!

I too have all the ingredients ready, take out the very hot stone from the oven, assemble the pizza on top of the stone (takes about 30-60s) and stick it back in the oven

hardCopy

bonkey wrote: »

Another pitfall is the topping itself

It's really easy to use too much passata (or whatever you use as a tomato base), which will also result in a soggy base...except at the edges where you have less sauce.

I always try to leave an almost dry patch in the centre as the sauce can end up very wet in the middle otherwise. I'll drop the sauce in the middle and then wipe it outwards with the back of a spoon.

rubadub

If you had a stiff foil sandwich platter


it might work as a peel, you could cut one side off to there is no ridge, yet leave the others on to retain strength.

tdh

Thanks alot guys, some really good advice here I wont use the greaseproof paper again:P

i usually use one of these recipes for the dough

• http://foodwishes.blogspot.ie/2009/07/wolfgang-pucks-famous-california-pizza.html
• http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14433/pizza+dough
• http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html

and this for the sauce

• http://foodwishes.blogspot.ie/2007/02/homemade-pizza-in-3-acts.html

There actually was a metal rack with the stone I thought wasn't very useful but I can use it to take it from the oven while I add the dough and toppings. I am looking forward to trying it now
The pizza in the pan looks amazing too, great find.

Kind of off topic but would anyone recommend any really good tomatoes for use in making the sauce? I never really made a delicious sauce yet! Thank you

unkel

tdh wrote: »

Kind of off topic but would anyone recommend any really good tomatoes for use in making the sauce? I never really made a delicious sauce yet! Thank you

Did you try the pizza sauce recipe from the cooking club? Works for me

I'm normally no great fan of sundried tomatoes, but they work very well in that recipe

I make this sauce in big batches as it freezes really well, keeps for a long time in the freezer and is very easily defrosted

BailMeOut

hardCopy wrote: »

I heat the pre-heat the stone for about 25 minutes.

While it's heating I roll out my dough on the counter top, again dusted with semolina.

Remove the stone from the oven, use a rolling pin to gather the base and roll it onto the hot stone. (Dust the rolling pin with flour and roll the pizza base around the rolling pin, then unroll it onto the stone)

Then top the pizza and return the stone to the oven.

The semolina stops everything sticking and gives you a little maneuverability (sp?) when dropping the base onto the hot stone, otherwise it sticks instantly to the stone. It's also dead easy to pick up the pizza when serving and less baked on crust to pick off afterwards.

+1 on the semolina trick. Its a must have and game changing ingredient when making pizza. Investing in a pizza peel being the other must IMO.

stevenmu

tdh wrote: »

Kind of off topic but would anyone recommend any really good tomatoes for use in making the sauce? I never really made a delicious sauce yet! Thank you

A great tip I saw on another thread here was to add a spoon of honey to the sauce, it adds a nice rich sweetness to it.