My pizza recipe

[shain]

For 3 medium pizzas (4 large-ish slices each) or 2 large pizzas (I recommend that you stick to medium sized ones).

 

• 425g (15oz) high gluten (bread) flour
• 272g (9.6oz) room temp water (based on hydration percentage: 272=425*0.64)
• 10.5g ( 0.4oz) salt
• 16g (4 tsp, 0.53oz) sugar
• 17g (1.5 tbsp, 0.6oz) olive oil 
• 6.5g (2 tsp, 0.25oz) instant yeast (or 2.5g dry)
• If you have non-diastatic malt powder, adding a little will add a nice flavor

Note: edited 2020, since my recipe changed since 2016. The original version called for 6.5g salt, 21g olive oil, 12g sugar.

 

 

• If using dry yeast, dissolve it in the water, instant yeast can be mixed with the flour.
• Mix all dry ingredients, pour in the water.
• Using a mixer, knead 5 min, let rest 10 min, knead 5 min more, or until well developed. 
• If you use your hands, it's better to knead more times, for shorter periods and shorter rests in between. 

 

• Put the dough in the fridge at least overnight, preferably 2-3 days and up to 6 days.
• Once the dough is risen, Take it cold from the fridge and place it on a dusted surface.
• Divide into as many pieces as you want pizzas.
• Shape into tight balls. Use semolina or flour as needed, try not to overuse it, but it's better than having it stick. 
• Place the balls on a generous dusting of semolina or flour so it won't stick to the surface. Keep it covered. I use an upside down bowl, but a dusted towel will work. 
• Let it rise for 1 to 2.5 hours (1 in summer, 2.5 in winter).
• Don't forget to preheat your oven at least 40 minutes before it's time to bake (even more time if you use a stone instead of steel).  You want as high as your oven will go (mine gets to ~270C).
• When the dough is risen, puffed and slack - Place a parchment over a peel or upside down oven sheet.
• I like to cut the corners of the parchment so to not risk it burning. 

 

• Shaping takes a little practice and is up to personal preference. There are good videos online. 
  Take a ball and dust lightly. Flatten it gently, don't remove much air. Do pinch any large bubbles. Put the dough on your closed fist and gently shake to extend the dough edges downwards. Hold the dough with two hands, using your finger to grab it slightly inside from the rim, as to keep the air in it. Let gravity stretch the dough downwards, as you rotate it in the, much like a steering wheel, gently stretch the dough sideways between your hands as you do so (I hope this description made sense). 
• When the dough inside the rim is thin and almost, but not yet allowing light through, place the dough on the parchment. Lift the edges and stretch it to its full size and restore its circular shape. 
• Top as desired. Use cold ingredients, especially the cheese, which is also better cubed than grated. I'll use apx. 90g (3.2oz) of mozzarella per medium sized pizza.
• Set the oven to top broiler/grill on maximum power for one minute, then slide the pizza and the parchment together into the oven and . Bake until getting slightly charred, but avoid browning the cheese. 
• Let the oven reheat a little (back in regular, non grill setting) before baking the next pie, and turn the broiler back on a minute before inserting it.

 

A note about baking - you want the baking steel to preheat as much as you can before inserting the pizza. You want to make sure the broiler is on for a minute before inserting the pizza, but not too long ahead so that it won't be stopped by the thermostat.

 

Please tell me if there is something you'd like me to clarify. 

 

 

My favorite toppings:

All are for medium sized pizzas, scale by 1.5 for a large pizza.
The amounts are in grams, but that doesn't mean it needs to be precise at all.

All toppings should be fridge-cold, especially the cheeses.

 

Classic NY style:

• 5 large ripe, sauce tomatoes (like roma or san-marzano) either fresh or canned - peeled , chopped, salted , drained and crushed (500g / 17oz)
• 100g cold semi-dry mozzarella (3.5oz), chopped
• Fry some garlic in olive oil.

• Add the tomatoes and cook until slightly thickened but still bright tasting.

• Add salt to taste and some basil, chili, etc.

• Spread the sauce and sprinkle the cheese.

 

 

Pesto-ricotta:

• 90-100g ricotta (3.5oz), mixed with some salt and pepper
• 50g cold mozzarella (1.8oz)
• 100g pesto, semi frozen or at least fridge-cold (3.6oz)
• 5-6 cherry tomatoes, halved
• Spread the mozzarella evenly, drop chunks of pesto and ricotta. Scatter the halved tomatoes.

 

Eggplants and mushrooms:

• 1 small eggplant, sliced and baked, grilled or fried
• about 5 button mushrooms, sliced and sauteed.
• 80g ricotta (2.8oz), mixed with a minced clove of garlic
• 90g cold mozzarella (3.2oz) - optionally smoked mozzarella
• Some salt, pepper, oregano and thyme

 

Margarita

• 4 large ripe, sauce tomatoes (like roma or san-marzano) either fresh or canned - peeled , chopped, salted , drained and crushed (400g / 17oz)
• 110g cold fresh mozzarella (3.9oz), teared by hand (or roughly chopped) 
• basil leaves
• Some sharp EVOO

Salt the crushed tomatoes to taste, spread it and place the cheese. Place the basil and drizzle olive oil immediately after baking.

 

Ricotta & figs

• 100g ricotta (3.5oz), mixed with 1/3 tsp salt and some pepper, and optionally, 1/3 tsp of ground anise or fennel seeds
• 80g cold mozzarella (2.8oz) 
• 4-5 large ripe figs, sliced. The narrow top-most slices are the cook's treat

Bake until the figs gets caramelized.

 

Goat cheese and olives

• About 5 tablespoons of cooked tomato sauce - enough for e thin even spreading
• Dry chili to taste
• 55g cold mozzarella (2oz) 
• 75g cold soft goat cheese, salted (2.6oz) 
• About 7-8 of olives of your choice, chopped
• About 5 cherry tomatoes, sliced (using multiple colors looks better)

 

Apples and blue cheese

• About 5 tablespoons of cooked tomato sauce - enough for e thin even spreading
• 65g mozzarella (2.3oz) 
• 65g strong blue cheese (2.3oz) 
• 150-170g tart apple (I used Granny Smith), cubed (apx 1/2")
• Some salt, depending on your cheese of choice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by shain (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Shai,

 

Olive oil in the dough?

[Okanagancook]

Wonderful summary!  Thank you.  I use your baking method and letting the dough develops flavour in the fridge for a few days.  I think the olive oil in the dough makes it a little more tender.

for us, minimal toppings is the key...it's all about the crust.

[shain]

9 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Olive oil in the dough?

 

5 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

 I think the olive oil in the dough makes it a little more tender.

 

Yes, it makes the dough a little softer and easier to handle. The baked crust is also a little more tender and a little less chewey. I think lean dough works better in wood fired (or professional strong gas fired ovens) where the pizza bakes faster and has no time to dry. 

Without the oil, and with some more water, this turns to be my (not often used) baguette recipe, which is quite different than what I like my pizza to be. 

 

5 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

for us, minimal toppings is the key...it's all about the crust.

 

I'm a crust lover as well. I personally,  always choose the slice with the biggest, most charred bubbles 

This is why I leave quite a large and thick rim, and make sure not to deflate it while shaping. 

I always make a few different pizzas, but one of them will always be a margrita or a "simple" cheese and sauce pizza. The ricotta, eggplant and mushroom one is my favorite flavor combination. 

Edited November 22, 2016 by shain (log)

[sartoric]

@shain, can you freeze the dough ?

[shain]

3 hours ago, sartoric said:

@shain, can you freeze the dough ?

I never tried. It should behave as any other lean dough, so if you had luck with it on the past, it should work. 

You might be interested in this thread over Pizzamaking.com . 

[JohnT]

7 hours ago, sartoric said:

@shain, can you freeze the dough ?

I use a similar recipe to shain except I use a mixture of bread and cake flours - our cake flour is more like the US AP flour. I make a batch that comes out at around 1250g then take 4 plastic bags and add a small quantity of olive oil to each bag, squash it around to coat the inside of the bag. Then I divide the mixed dough into four approx. 310g portions, bag them, and freeze them. I make pizza every Friday evening so take a bag out the freezer on Thursday evening and let it defrost in the fridge until around 4pm on Friday, when I place the bag on the counter top for a couple hours.

 

I do pizza on a Friday evening as my industrial oven is still hot from baking for clients and thus only needs a short run to bring it to 250°C for the pizza bake. Every week I experiment with something new - seldome do I make a pizza that would be produced in a pizza shop and mine often contain some meat, although not always. Lately I have experimented to finely sliced chicken which has been marinated in soy sauce, a touch of sugar and then stir fried with garlic and chilli flakes. This past Friday was a pretty standard pizza with onion, mushroom, a little green pepper, garlic and thinly sliced chorizo. 

John.

[TimIgor88]

That's cool! Thanks! Recipes are wonderful! I'll definitely try to do it, but I'm not sure what happens the first time .....  But it's worth it

[TimIgor88]

By the way I wanted to ask - I was looking for a knife for pizza and I found this. What say?

[weinoo]

That's nice - I like this one too.

[JohnT]

Just a quick question. If you do not bake pizza every day (as in professionally), why would you want to buy a pizza cutting wheel-cutter? For a one or two pizza a week baker, surly a standard sharp kitchen knife will suffice! And you save a few $$$. Or is my reasoning all screwed-up!

[lindag]

pizza cutters can be very handy for things other than just pizza.

[cakewalk]

That's what I was thinking. I have a pizza cutter and I hardly ever make pizza. But when I want to cut dough into even strips, I use the pizza cutter and a ruler. In a professional kitchen you would probably have a particular item to do just that, but in the home kitchen I think most people use a lot of gadgets for things other than what they're intended. (I'm thinking about my egg slicer gadget, which does such a good job on mushrooms.) 

[lindag]

1 hour ago, cakewalk said:

That's what I was thinking. I have a pizza cutter and I hardly ever make pizza. But when I want to cut dough into even strips, I use the pizza cutter and a ruler. In a professional kitchen you would probably have a particular item to do just that, but in the home kitchen I think most people use a lot of gadgets for things other than what they're intended. (I'm thinking about my egg slicer gadget, which does such a good job on mushrooms.) 

Egg slicers also work for slicing strawberries.

[Anna N]

5 hours ago, JohnT said:

Just a quick question. If you do not bake pizza every day (as in professionally), why would you want to buy a pizza cutting wheel-cutter? For a one or two pizza a week baker, surly a standard sharp kitchen knife will suffice! And you save a few $$$. Or is my reasoning all screwed-up!

In the home kitchen a large pair of scissors works wonderfully on a pizza. 

[MelissaH]

21 hours ago, Anna N said:

In the home kitchen a large pair of scissors works wonderfully on a pizza. 

In fact, in our house, the kitchen scissors were called the "pizza scissors" the whole time I was growing up. They were even the pizza scissors when we used them to cut through something else, like chicken!

[shain]

I use a chef knife, pressing it down without dragging. Works great. 

[shain]

On 11/22/2017 at 7:08 PM, cakewalk said:

I'm thinking about my egg slicer gadget, which does such a good job on mushrooms

The strings cutter thingy? That's awesome, I wish I haven't had cut all my shrooms already so that I could try it. 

Edited November 26, 2017 by shain (log)

[liuzhou]

I'm not a great pizza eater, but did buy these, mainly for amusement value, but found them ideal for pizza cutting

[Katie Meadow]

The pizza wheel cutter is a simple cheap device. Folks, it costs about $10-15 and there are lots and lots of styles. Good looking ones don't cost more than ugly ones. It should be sharp and that's what matters most.  In my experience it is way faster and more accurate than using a knife, so it won't be in your hand long; therefore I suspect most models will be comfortable enough for the occasional baker. Using a scissors would never have occurred to me, but to each his/her own. I can see Martha Stewart using a high end scissors, but she's certifiable anyway. 

 

It won't take long to acquire panache and confidence when using the wheel. If you have stretchy thick mozzarella I can maybe see how a slow cutting technique could be a problem with any tool. If that happens, try using fresh buffalo mozzarella, which is never gooey!

 

There must be a good reason why pizza joints and high end restaurants all use this tool. Ours is all steel w/no plastic parts and we've had it for about 25 years. We make pizza maybe once a month. Like several posters above I also find it very effective for cutting strips of dough, along with an ordinary steel ruler. I use it for cheese straws. I could see it would be quite useful for making a lattice pie crust, but even retirement hasn't resulted in me making pies.

[Kasia]

The oil in the dough - great idea - have to try