You know those pizza crusts you buy in the market, which are usually hanging near the bags of pepperoni slices. You add your own tomato sauce and whatever toppings you want, and then throw the crust in the oven for ten minutes at 450F. Usually, I’ve started with the tomato sauce, then added the non-cheese ingredients, and then laid thin slices of mozzarella over all.
The pizza comes out very good taste-wise. But the toppings keep sliding around in a mass when we try to eat it. I assumed this is because the baking temperature is less than what they use in a real pizza restaurant, but is it possibly something else? Would shredded cheese work better, put on before any other ingredients?
You may be putting to much topping on it, especially sauce. Use thicker sauces and more spices so you don’t have to spread it as deep. Buy low moisture mozzarella. Don’t use high grease releasing meat. Precook the greasy meats and drain them. Try italian or french bread. The cheese doesn’t have to all go one top. Throw some of the meat on top.
Well, those shells are pre-baked, so they absorb much less of the sauce than an unbaked shell, and don’t mingle as much with the ingredients. That’s probably the root cause of your problems. Try an unbaked dough?
Use shredded cheese instead of sliced, and put the cheese down first, then the toppings, then more cheese if you desire. The toppings are moving since there is nothing holding them in place.
I worked in a pizza shop for four years. Beyond what the others have said (shredded cheese, possibly too much sauce) I thought I would mention that at the shop I worked at we always put a thin layer of olive oil down on the dough before adding the sauce. I’m not sure what effect that had on the makeup of the pizza, though.
I make Boboli crust pizza all the time (partner says I can serve it in a restaurant, but also loves Hamburger Helper ) and what I usually do is put the sauce, top it with the meat mixture and any pre-cooked toppings like sauteed mushrooms and onions, then cheese and top it with the “extras” like herbs, peppercinis, pine nuts, etc… I bake the pizzas for 10 minutes and then switch the oven to broil for 3-5 minutes so the top gets it’s own crust, which keeps it all together IMHO.
No doubt, especially if you’re using straight mozzarella. In my experience, mozzarella turns into soup when melted, and if you don’t let it cool and set up after the pizza comes out of the oven, it’ll flow like water. Rest the pizza, then cut, and you’ll get less slide-off. I’d go three minutes or longer, but I understand that, with the smell of fresh-baked pizza in the house, that may not be possible.
I worked in a pizza place and the only toppings we put on before cheese were sauce then sausage. The sausage was pressed into the dough just a little. Of course this is uncooked sausage so it deforms into the dough very well. I wouldn’t use precooked sausage on my pizza.
Thanks for all the tips. The common theme that I take away from this is to use shredded cheese and not to use too much tomato sauce. I realize now that too much tomato sauce was almost certainly a major reason for the problems I was having, because it WOULD. NOT. COOL. DOWN.
I will be trying this again tonight. Additionally, I’m considering scoring or stabbing the crust here and there to give it more grip.
