Ready-made Pizza Bases

[Carlovski]

I feel slightly ashamed even posting this having seen the pizza cook off photos, but here goes...

What do people think about ready made pizza bases? Undeniably most of them are awful, either thick doughy monstrosities or thin ones which are rock hard and brittle.

I have found one which is actually passable though - the stone bake one from ASDA in the uk - they sell the ones they use to make their own pizzas in the bigger stores. You don't get the melding between topping and base you get from fresh dough (Although you get it a little more than others I have tried - there is a bit of texture to the surface) but the crust itself comes out reasonable - crisp but flexible and chewy.

Still nothing like the real thing, but with the addition of decent toppings, applied with a sparing hand then it is much better than any supermarket offering.

Anywhere else sell a base that will do when time is just to short to wait for pizza dough?

Sorry, I promise to pilgrimage to pizza Mecca to atone for my sins (But is that Naples or New York )

[Andrew Fenton]

I've never had anything from a supermarket that was worth trying twice. But bakeries and pizzerias will sometimes sell pizza shells (this sounds like what you're talking about with ASDA-- I presume that's some sort of chain?) Here in Philadelphia, Sarcone's-- an Italian bakery that also turns out a very good bakery-style pizza-- also sells shells. The resulting pizza isn't as good as what you'd get from scratch, but it's not bad either.

[scott123]

I made the mistake of buying boboli once. Oh man, was that horrible. I know people that swear by it, but not me.

My biggest problem with pre-made crusts isn't necessarily with how the crust turns out, but how the cheese ends up. In order for cheese to cook properly (i.e. render the delicious milkat) cheese needs bottom heat so that it will bubble. With a fresh dough, the stone heats the water in the dough, turns it to steam and this steam helps to boil the sauce/bubble the cheese. A wet dough will conduct the energy far better than a dry piece of bread. A pre-made crust acts more like an insulator than a conductor. Lack of bottom heat = unproperly cooked cheese.

If your pre-made crust is thin enough, it helps, but thin pre-made crusts are hard to come by due to their fragile nature. Also fresh mozzerella is very forgiving when it comes to lack of bottom heat, but what I'm referring to here is your generic supermarket mozz.

And please, no matter what you do, don't ever broil your pizza. If your cheese browns on the top before it bubbles - all hope is lost. Broiled cheese will never turn out as wonderful as cheese that's been bubbled from below.

[JPW]

I've never had anything from a supermarket that was worth trying twice.  But bakeries and pizzerias will sometimes sell pizza shells (this sounds like what you're talking about with ASDA-- I presume that's some sort of chain?)  Here in Philadelphia, Sarcone's-- an Italian bakery that also turns out a very good bakery-style pizza-- also sells shells.  The resulting pizza isn't as good as what you'd get from scratch, but it's not bad either.

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Not that it helps Carlovski much, but the Trader Joe's pizza dough is surprisingly acceptable and much better than any pre-formed thing that you'll pull out of the frozen food section.

[Carlovski]

A lot of posts talk about buying pizza dough, either from a bakery/supermarket or from a pizza place - not something that is really available in the UK (Well I've never seen it)

[Marlene]

The bakery around the corner from me makes a great pizza dough. I've been known to use it when I don't have time to make my own.

[bronihk]

Whole Foods in NYC has frozen pizza dough that is totally fine. Made a great pizza with it the other day. i've also gone to pizza shops and just asked for a ball of dough. some will oblidge, some wont (a friend of mine actually went to about 5 places once before they actually gave her the dough). this also worked quite well. the only real problem is that i baked in a standard oven w/ a cookie sheet so there was no tasty brown-ness. this, though, was my fault not the dough's.

[Behemoth]

I make a large batch of pizza dough and freeze them in disks. The downside is that you need to know a day in advance that you want to have pizza, and move them to the fridge overnight to defrost. The next day I leave them on the counter for an hour while I am prepping toppings and heating up the stone, then it just takes about 5 minutes to shape and 8 or so to bake. It's not ready made, but the final step ends up taking about the same time as delivery.

[schneich]

you can make a great crust in less time than it takes buyin a premade one

you really just throw together some breadflour yeast sugar salt and evo

wait a few minutes, and off you go ;-)

if aspiring the inner sanctum of pizza you MUST buy peter reinhards book "american pie" its worth every single penny...

cheers

t.

[chow guy]

you can make a great crust in less time than it takes buyin a premade one

you really just throw together some breadflour yeast sugar salt and evo

wait a few minutes, and off you go ;-)

if aspiring the inner sanctum of pizza you MUST buy peter reinhards book "american pie" its worth every single penny...

cheers

t.

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Truer words were never spoken... Reinhart's book rules... so does his, "Sacramental Magic in a Smalltown Cafe".

[DTBarton]

Whole Foods in NYC has frozen pizza dough that is totally fine.  Made a great pizza with it the other day.  i've also gone to pizza shops and just asked for a ball of dough.  some will oblidge, some wont (a friend of mine actually went to about 5 places once before they actually gave her the dough).  this also worked quite well.  the only real problem is that i baked in a standard oven w/ a cookie sheet so there was no tasty brown-ness.  this, though, was my fault not the dough's.

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Found the same to be true myself, some pizzerias will sell you dough.

I try to make extras when I make homemade and freeze them.

[Paul B]

I think that ready-made pizza crusts have their places. I often use them when I make a curry pizza (a good curry sauce, cooked pieces of chicken, peas, and crumbled feta). But for real pizzas I used the bread machine. Make the dough in the machine, turn it into a bowl and let it rise of an couple of hours, then work it into pizza crusts. Tastes great and it's relatively easy.

[naguere]

In England, every supermarket sells packets of flour ready primed with yeast and specifically for pizza bases. They are easy to prepare and work a treat.

'ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US'

[Syrah]

Pizza dough freezes really well. I prove mine for an hour, so it is not necessarily easy to make during the week. What I usually do is make a double batch on a Sunday, and then freeze in thin discs. Remove from the freezer as you run out the door in the morning and it's a quick job when you get home.