Yes. That’s my usual technique. I never try rolling out cold dough. It’s usually at room temp for at least 2 hours before I roll it out.
Like I said, I often have the same problem with other store-bought dough. Whole Foods dough is a bit easier to deal with, but I hate going over there and spending the money.
I’ll have to give their dough a try. I end up there once every week or two to pick up bulk grains or something like that (which are actually reasonably priced when you’re looking for slightly obscure grains.)
Plus I don’t know why I wrote “roll out” above, as I usually stretch out my dough by hand. (Although I have tried rolling to see if it helps with the issue, and it doesn’t. Plus it depends on the style.)
Yeah, I’m pretty inept when it comes to rolling.
I find I like using the TJ’s dough for calzones, rather than pizza. (One bag makes two calzones.)
I don’t know what will happen with the leftover half of the dough I made Sunday. Maybe another pizza, maybe calzones. I’ll see how I feel on Friday.
I just follow Rachel Ray’s advice and buy pizza dough from the nearest pizzeria. Put extras in the freezer.
I came in to say baking steel as well. It takes any pizza dough you throw together and makes it so much better. bakingsteel.com (I have no personal economic interests in baking steel!)
I use a generic bread flour recipe and I never have any problem stretching the dough after a 1 hour rise, punch down and a 2nd 30-45 min rise. But I’m not in love with the texture - even when I stretch it very thin, it bakes up a little too stiff for me. I like a soft floppy crust.
Every once in a while I’ll throw in a few shakes of garlic powder - you can definitely taste it in the crust, but it also makes your whole hands smell like garlic (from kneading).
I used the other half of the dough last night. I think the end result was better than the first half.
We don’t have any pizza sauce; just some Prego spaghetti sauce. The pizza a week ago had this sauce, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and olives on it. It tasted good, but not particularly ‘interesting’. Last night I mixed a can of tomato paste with some of the Prego, and added two cloves of crushed garlic, Italian seasoning, and the rest of the olives. I split the dough into two halves and put more sauce on each disc that one would think a pizza could hold. I put half a bag of shredded Italian cheese(s) on each one; then pepperoni, sliced fresh mushrooms, onions, and green bell pepper on half of the disc. Fold it over, seal the edges. Bake at 450ºF for 20 minutes.
I ate half of a calzone, and the SO ate the other half and a quarter of the other one. Turned out great! I wished I had some ricotta to put in there to, though. Gotta have ricotta in a calzone!
Do you have milk? Do you have lemon juice? Yes? Then you COULD have had ricotta.
I have recently stopped buying pre-grated cheese, since learning that “cellulose” in the ingredient list is in the form of… sawdust. Mmmm… It’s only a few moments extra work to grate some mozzarella, and actually, the plastic-y stuff works better than fresh bocconcini on pizza, as there’s less moisture.
I’m not sure that baking steel is worth the effort unless you REALLY like your pizza. Kenji came out with the definitive word on the baking steel and I got one.
I’ll grant that it’s “better” than cast iron. But there is considerably greater hassle factor involved. The baking steel is heavy and it takes a “while” to get up to temperature (which is also the attraction since that sucker is a giant thermal mass).
I have just found that I don’t pull out the steel very often because it takes much longer. Seems like serious overkill for when i’m making my own little pie or some cheese sticks for the bambinas. Plus China Wife bitches about it being so heavy. It’s not bad but IMHPO (in my humble pizza opinion) the gain isn’t worth the effort.
Note: I don’t have the lodge cast iron pizza pan. I just use a cast iron skillet and flip it over as my baking surface.
Net net, unless you’re looking for the nirvana pie at home, and if you already think the iron skillet is great, then I wouldn’t invest in the baking steel. If you are on the quest for the perfect home pizza, then by all means get one.