I’ve tried just about all the kinds there are but they never taste like fresh pizza for some reason. You’d think they would be able to manufacture one by now that tastes like fresh?
One of the big culprits is water. It’s really hard to thaw out a frozen pizza and get all the water to come out. Normally a fresh pizza is helped out by the steam formed in baking.
Also real pizzas are baked at much higher temperatures than a frozen pizza.
And a real pizza has ingredients which are fresh and still have most of their original flavors.
I think it’s the same reason that most foods taste worse after they’ve been frozen or held as leftovers. Many of the things in food that give it flavor (like the garlic and herbs in pizza sauce and pepperoni) are volatile oils that start evaporating the second you slice the ingredient. In fact, the most flavorful things are precisely the most volatile things, because they are what hits your nose first when you’re eating. Frozen pizzas are manufactured on little assembly lines, so they’re exposed to the air for some time before they’re frozen; plus, the manufacturers have to use ingredients they know will stand up to the freezer, and these ingredients are often inferior in taste.
I’ve also noticed that bread dough tends to take up the smell and taste of whatever else is in the freeer. I used to use frozen bread dough to make pizza, but I got tired of that “icy” taste it keeps even after it’s baked. Now I make the dough fresh; it’s really no more trouble than using frozen, because you don’t have to go to the trouble of thawing it ahead of time.
Of course the most important reason is that frozen pizza makers, like any big corporation, try to squeeze out costs down to the last fraction of a cent, and inevitably wind up with a lowest-common-denominator product that tastes exactly like you’d expect: like something that came out of a factory.
When making your pizza dough what do you find best,fresh or dried yeast?. I used to make my dough with the fresh sort bought from a health-food shop. The last couple of times I have used the dried sort from a carton and I think it makes a better dough for pizza.
Sometimes we ask the bakery to save us some dough & we use it to make pizza. They need a day notice usually.
I agree that using frozen (raw) dough is a good substitute (I’ve never had the “frozen taste” problem). You can make a batch good for two or three pizzas and freeze what you don’t need.
I also use the “dough” setting on my bread machine. I find that it tastes best if you use about half the amount of yeast you would use for bread.
I think a lot of home pizza makers get into trouble by putting on too many toppings or too much sauce/cheese. You can get away with that with a real pizza oven, but at home you just end up with a soggy mess.
David Cronan:
Are you sure what you were using was baker’s yeast? Health food stores sell other kinds of yeast that’s mainly used for nutritional purposes.
cold pizza chemistry
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_692000/692122.stm
I think “Stouffer’s French Bread” Pizza is nearly as good as Domino’s
I kinda like Stouffer’s, don’t insult them with a Domino’s comparison. To me, Domino’s is crapola compared to a good, local, pizzeria. Of course, I grew up on NYC style pizza, and am now kind picky.
One thing to help with home pizza is a pizza stone. That’s the only way to get good, high, heat directly on the bottom of the pie, like in a pizzeria. That’ll probably even help with the frozen kind, but the stones take a long time to heat up, and aren’t so convenient.
For home, I personally like the premade crusts in the bread section, their really easy to use, you can customize the toppings, and they don’t taste too bad.
I think the yeast I buy from health-food shops is the correct sort.It is sold in a compressed ,crumbly block which smells and behaves like baker’s yeast. Temperature is the key to a well baked crust. My gas oven will only reach a temperature of 475 deg.F on the top shelf and I do not think that is hot enough.
Are you sure 500 deg isn’t high enough for an oven?
They make this silly looking contraption desktop oven to cook frozen pizzas. Have you seen it? Costs $80.00 Your pizza just sits there on the counter exposed to the air the whole time. Odd.
I believe most pizza ovens reach temperatures upwards of 700F.
The instructions sometimes say to put them right on the rack, not on a pan. I stil use a pan, I don’t want it to stick to the rack.