I love making pizza. Since getting a city-friendly pizza oven
I've been making about a dozen pies a month and taking notes along the way. I have a long way to go but I'm
pretty happy with progress so far.
Dough proofed for a little too long, was very delicate and hard to work with
Pepperoni with pesto
Pepperoni with ricotta
Marghertia with cherry tomatoes
Finally cracked naturally-leavened dough!! It was puffy, spunky, and delicious – a way bigger improvement than I was expecting. Turns out it was my starter - when I mixed the starter for this dough it rose like crazy. 10 days of 2x daily feeding and then 8 days of daily feeding got to be consistently active, doubling in size overnight.
Ricotta wasn’t very tasty, just tasted bland. Think I’ll try burrata next time.
Debugging naturally-leavened dough pt. 2
Starter didn’t rise at all after yesterday’s feeding. I think it didn’t get strong enough before I started refrigerating it. Going to leave it out and feed it 2x a day at a 1:2 ratio (25g starter, 50g water, 50g flour) for a week or so and see what happens.
Debugging naturally-leavened dough
Is my starter in good shape?
Should double in size after today’s feeding
Conducted float test (dollop of starter should float in glass of water) but my starter failed
Levain
Use correct water temp + wait for room temp to be regular levels (60ish)
Check that levain doubled in size
Switch to high-protein bread flour instead of 00
After feeding, starter didn’t rise on kitchen counter overnight but rose a ton in the oven (no heat just oven light). Must be too cold on the counter.
2x Goat cheese and fig jam
Marghertia
First attempt at naturally-leavened dough: failure. Dough didn’t rise at all, crust tasted very flat. Need to debug.
Goat cheese and fig jam continues to be a crowd favorite
Marghertia
Pepper Medley: jalepeños, shall
Proscuitto + goat cheese + fig jam
Spicy salami + honey
Used dry-farm early girl tomatoes for sauce; was too sweet and overpowered the rest of the flavories
Dough sat for too long (3h), absored a lot of flour, and bottom got too burnt as a result.
Marghertia
Pepperoni + pepperocini
Proscuitto + goat cheese + fig jam
Pesto + cherry tomatoes
Too much salt in tomato sauce; keep it at 2 pinch per can of tomatoes
Anthony method of flipping it over a few times but to not try and take the air out of it
Appollonia didn’t come out right; was basically scrambled eggs on pizza
Need to add it very late and use spoon to drizzle it on the pizza
Do less than a whole egg
Add black pepper and fresh garlic
Goat cheese + balsamic vinegar + pickled red onions
2x Potato + pancetta + rosemary
2x Marghertia
Pancetta + eggs
Marghertia
Swiss chard and garlic cream
2x Bianca: pecorino, mozzerella, paremesean, sliced garlic, red pepper flakes
Did 3 x 280g balls slightly too big — 250g definitely the ticket
The dough balls being too big causes the crust to be too chewy
Got pretty close on the Piccino Bianca — need to go light on the mozz (has so much moisture, add pecorino, and do 1:1:1 ratio. Make chili oil spicier, needed to kick it up with flakes
Don’t scrimp on the garlic slices, they aren’t too flavorful
Put garlic in close to the end so that they don’t burn
Try cooking at a lower temp generally – when I did Delfina’s pizzas at 600 way back when they came out really nice
Consistently undercooking the pizzas — cook em longer
Kale pesto and garlic cream was delish do that more
Chard needs to be very moist and out in late as to not burn
The soft dough is really difficult to get out of the box — think of different solutions. More flour helped a lot though
Watch some more videos on how to shape dough,
2x Bianca (Piccino): parmesan, pecorino, mozzarella, chili oil, garlic
2x Potato, pancetta, rosemary
Single Ken dough recipe, split into 3 250g dough balls
Make dough right before people come over on Saturday, in time for Sunday lunch (do regular 24-48hr dough, most compatible with the schedule)
Want to get dough to rise more
Maybe it’s OK that the dough doesn’t rise: Ken says says the dough will expand rather than rise after a cold ferment
“To prevent salt from foiling your bread bakes, measure carefully and never pour yeast and salt on top of one another in your mixing bowl.” (source)
Room could be too cold, try letting it rise in a warm place (source)
[[The Pizza Lab: How Long Should I Let My Dough Cold Ferment?]]
Longer fermentation affects leoparding: slower fermentation causes stronger gluten structures, allowing the gluten to expand more and create airer dough
Pizzeria is 12.5% protein, whereas retail Americana style is 13.5%.
Apparently Pizzeria style is better suited for ovens that are 500+ degrees
brickovenbaker.com has Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour repacked into smaller units, bought 9lbs for $22 (equivalent to 4 regular bags)
Get some different yeast, I have a sense the corner store yeast isn’t good (source)
Ken recommends SAF Red Instant yeast, stored airtight in the fridge for up to 6mo
200g per pizza too little, need to use 250g+
36hr total ferment, think it was too long, stick to 24hr or try Saturday pizza dough
Use much more flour on the bottom so it doesn’t stick so much
Dough
Making 24-48hr dough, 1.5x quantity
Scale not accurate enough for salt/yeast, did 3 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp on yeast
Timeline
Started at 8:20
Mixed at 8:40
Kneaded at 9:00
Turned into dough balls at 11:30
Became 6x 200g dough balls, want to aim for 250g in the future
Prepped Beddia dough out at 8:45, pull Ken dough at 10:30
Ken dough seems like it hasn’t risen at all. Maybe there isn’t enough yeast, or I didn’t properly activate the yeast. Hard to cut that recipe in half given how little yeast content there is.
Alex said she did half of Ken’s dough after 24hrs and second half after 36hrs and the second batch came out much lighter/less dense. Good idea for next time, esp since I’ve got the fridge space.
Beddia dough was very flat and stretchy, barely held together. Ended up splitting it into 4 dough balls that were 215g each. Had I left it to sit for longer after rerolling I think it could have been nice.
Yeast is not dead tested it
Put toppings on pizza after putting it in better, less burnt
Pizza shop dough just too wet for neopolitan style pizza
Pizza needs hours to settle putting into a ball – prepared at 4:30, was unworkable at 5:30, was barely OK at 6:30, much better by 7:30
Basil creme was a hit – much better than regular basil
Cherry tomatoes oven roasted for a bit with pepper flakes and olive oil ++
Use real anchovies not the paste
Don’t put cheese in until halfway through so that it is doesn’t bubble and become like a NY slice
250-280g is a good size for the oven, <220g below is just too small/too much crust
Lightly dress the argula with olive oil before using it on the pizza
Potato, pancetta, rosemary
Salami + spicy honey
Margherita
Margherita
Pesto
Pancetta + egg
Margherita + egg
2x Pizzeria Beddia Roasted Mushroom
This was awful
Crimini Mushroom
2x Chorizo + jalapeño
Used Trader Joe’s plain dough, was pretty meh
Really need to focus on forming the right amount of crust, turns out to be too much consistently
Pulling the dough into the air tends to make it uneven, better to just keep it on the surface Beddia-style
Margherita
2x Arriabiata: tomato sauce mixed with Calabrian Chili
2x Green Goddess (Starbelly): arugula, bacon, green goddess dressing
My technique still isn’t there yet the pizzas were too thin and had too much crust on them
Dough was really hard to work with, wasn’t stretchy and elastic
Next time, try dough from Pizza Shop, Delfina, Pizzhacker
2x Margherita
2x Potato, pancetta, rosemary
Garlic cream and chard
2x Calabrian chili, roasted red peppers, dandelion greens
Ricotta cream, spinach, garlic
Garlic cream and chard was really tasty and beautiful, basically a cheesy garlic bread with chard
Red peppers are too watery to use, could try again and roast them for much longer, they just tasted soggy
Used too much Ricotta, pie became floppy
Split Lamonica dough into 220g balls, came out OK but very thin, would like to try a 300-350g ball for a thicker crust/longer cook time
Really overdid it on quantity, had 3 cups and barely used 1 cup
Cherry pie
Potato, pancetta, rosemary
Nduja and spicy honey
Margheita
4x Margherita
4x Pepperoni
2x Prosciutto + arugula
2x Potato, pancetta, rosemary
2x Margherita arribiata
2x Di Fara (Pizzeria Beddia): margherita with lots of torn basil
2x Di Fara (Beddia): margherita with lots of torn basil