I love Good Eats for that sort of thing. The best one is when he’s making baklava, and needs a teaspoon of rose water. Of course, he starts with actual roses and a specialized rig rather than buying a bottle - for an ingredient you likely wouldn’t even taste.
A lot of good advice in this thread - and it seems to have turned out well for the OP.
But.
Please don’t put the cheese on top of the veggies and meat cuts.
From bottom to top:
- Dough
- Sauce*
- Cheese*
(4. Veggies)*
(5. Cold cuts)*
In that way, the toppings have the chance to be browned a little by the heat in the oven. If you “hide” them underneath the cheese, they only get steamed - which is still tasty, but inferior. When the cheese melts, the toppings will already sink into the cheese.
- Easy on these: In my experience, most self-made pizzas are made with too much of these components. A thin layer of sauce and a see-through layer of cheese. A maximum of three or four different vegetables and/or cold cuts, don’t cover more than maybe a third of the surface of the pizza with it.
Too wet is another problem. I’ve found it helpful to dry the veggies after slicing them. Green peppers in particular seem to release a lot of juice when cut.
Yep. Like I said above, another option is to parcook or even roast the green peppers if you’re going to be using them generously.
I’ve never had any issues with vegetables or meats not crisping and properly cooking, and I usually put my cheese on top (depending on the style of pizza I’m making.) I don’t use a crazy amount of cheese, though. I can’t really think of many pizza styles in which the veggies and deli meats go on top of the cheese, to be honest. I kind of like it on top because, well, because that’s what I’m used to and because the cheese on top helps hold the ingredients in place better than vice-versa.
Lots of great advice here, particularly in regard to vegetables, which I learned the hard way. Now I nuke them slightly and then drain or squeeze in paper towels.
I’m dying to try the iron pan.
Tomorrow’s pizza will be on the grill. Gets a nice char that way, and cooks rather quickly.
I make a pizza just last week. Pizza stone in the oven while it was preheating, 500 degrees. Pillsbury refrigerated dough. (I know, but I was lazy. And it’s not bad.) I don’t have a peel or an easy way to slide anything, so I built my pizza on a piece of parchment paper and put that whole shebang on the stone, paper and all. Light sauce (actually, I used some of Newman’s Own Marinara that I had on hand); sprinkled some fresh chopped garlic over the sauce; basil, oregano, and parmesan sprinkled over the crust on the sides; light layer of mozz; layer of pepperoni over that; sprinkled some chopped onions; more mozz; bake for 10 - minutes.
Delicious.
I’ll share my method.
First, think ahead with the dough, I usually make my own or put refrigerated doughs out a few hours early to warm up and rise.
Preheat your oven for a long while, 45min or so, at 425, with the stone on the bottom.
I’ve taken to rolling out the dough most of the way before stretching the last little bit, mine come out more even that way.
Then, I add sauce to the dough, and throw it in the oven.
Cook for 5 minutes, then remove with a metal pizza peel, and top with cheese, and whatever else.
Veggies get cooked and drained first.
Put back in for 5 more minutes, until the crust is done.
This method has allowed me to avoid an overly wet pizza, keeping the crust crunchy, even if I use veggies, fresh mozzarella and regular tomato sauce. It also helps me to get the pizza off the wooden peel, which is more difficult with a fully laden pizza.
The metal peel is very helpful because it’s much easier to get under the cooked pizza than the wooden peel.
I have a 16" cast iron pan. Pizza is just one of the many ways it’s useful. Much better than a pizza stone. I’m not sure of the point of a stone anyway. It gets no hotter than your oven, and doesn’t conduct heat as readily as metal.
For those wondering about making pizza dough in advance. I’ll often make a load on Monday and divide it up into plastic containers and pop it in the coldest part of the fridge for use during the week.
Often I’ll use it when 4 or 5 days old. Sure it develops in flavour slightly and may indeed pop a lid as it keeps rising. It may also appear a little wet when getting it out again but nothing that a little dusting and knock-back with flour plus a half-hour rise won’t fix.
Really good for rolling into ovals and baking into pitta bread as well if you find you can’t be arsed to make a full pizza. Sliced and dipped in salsa, yoghurt or whatever, hey, it’s fresh bread what’s not to like?
I caramelized the onions (this was half-way successful, but they were still tasty) and put the mushrooms and green peppers in the oven for about 15 minutes before topping the pizza- I think that helped avoid sogginess.
I just got a cast iron pizza pan, like the one linked above, for Christmas. I’ve only used it a couple of times, but it always crisps the bottom crust perfectly, right to the center. MMM! When I used it, to make cleanup easier, I topped it with some Reynolds Nonstick foil. Parchment paper gets scorched at temps above 425F, but the Reynolds works fine, passing heat along just like contact with bare metal, and the pizza slides right off.
Having a great crust is paramount, but if you buy your dough or crust premade, you can’t do much to change it, so the next most important thing to me is: herbs. You don’t necessarily need the best herbs you can get, or have to grow your own or anything; getting a premixed spice grinder labeled “Pizza Seasoning” from a grocery store is fine. But herbs are one of those things where, if you fail to add them, you’ll know something’s not right, even if you can’t put your finger on it. So get some herbs, and sprinkle them on the sauce, before you add the cheese. You want the cheese to insulate them from the heat of the oven, because burnt herbs taste nasty.
My problem with my crust is that it’s bland and kinda dry. I know this isn’t just because it’s gluten free as I have had much better crust from the pre-made variety. It just seems like there should be some sort of oil-and-spices rub on it.
But I don’t get my hands on pizza dough often. so I’m not as inclined to experiment. Is that a good idea? Has anyone done that sort of thing before? What spices would you recommend?
Even before, the crust was always the worst part of any pizza I ever made (unless I used biscuit dough. But is that really a pizza?)
Depends what you’re used to. Half the time, I just use straight crushed tomatoes with a bit of salt as my pizza sauce (6-in-1 is my brand of choice for pizza and a lot of pasta sauces. Seriously, if you have it available and have never tried it because the packaging looks a bit generic, do yourself a favor and try it.) Maybe garlic, depending on my mood. If I add herbs, I usually just do one: either oregano, or, if I’m doing a mushroom pizza, thyme. (Or, yeah, if I’m doing a margherita, then it’s fresh basil. Anything more would just be wrong.) But straight crushed/pureed tomatoes work great.
When I make my own dough, I add some spices to the flour and other dry ingredients: oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, and grated parmesan (not a spice, I know).
Flavor in the crust, at least traditionally, is usually the result of the yeast and a slow rise. Pizza crust is usually just flour, yeast, water, and salt. (Don’t forget the salt. Lack of salt will also cause the dough to taste bland.) The lactic acid that develops with a long, slow rise (or with a pre-ferment involving a poolish) gives the dough nice flavor.
Now, sometimes, milk will also be added to the dough to increase its browning properties and tenderness. Olive oil is added for similar reasons, and also contributes flavor.
Here is a good list of dough additions and what they do to your crust. The gluten-free part is a challenge, as I don’t have any experience in making gluten-free crusts. I would just take a recipe for a gluten-free bread that I like, and then make pizza crust out of it as pizza, at its most basic, is about good bread.