Pizza
Total Pies: 224
I love making pizza. I was an early Ooni oven fanatic and during the pandemic was making a dozen pies a month and taking notes along the way.
Inspiration comes from my favorite pizza spots in SF (PizzaHacker, Del Popolo, Outta Sight) and the world (Pizzeria Bianco, Una Pizza Napoletana, Pizzeria Beddia).
×
- 2x Margherita
- Sopressata, ricotta, hot honey
- Bigger dough ball test: 280g, 300g, 320g
- Big pies are great – 300g is a great size on the big paddle
- Dough can stretch much more than I expect; gets nice and cracker-y if so
- Go lighter on the sauce – don’t want any pooling
- Go light on the oil and cheese too, it should look a little sparse; only the Bianca should be sort of thick and layered
- Pepperoni, pancetta, potatoes – can go on in the beginning on the big Ooni
- Pancetta, potato, rosemary
- Asiago, mozzerella, parmesean, garlic, red pepper flakes
- Ricotta, sopressata, hot honey
- Marghertia
- 1st time since mid-Feb, definitely a little rusty
- Didn’t pull dough correctly, crust was too thick + too thin in middle
- Ricotta + sopressata + hot honey + garlic was amazing though, definitely a new favorite
- Didn’t realize my paddle was only 11.6” wide, have effectively been doing 10” pies with a huge dough ball (280g)
- Bought a 16” peel to try some bigger pies
- Sweet potato, sage, veal
- Potato, pancetta, rosemary
- Chorizo + pickled jalepeños
- Crimini + oyster mushrooms
- Veal + carmelized onions
- Kitchen was a little too cold, dough didn’t rise enough – need to find a way to keep dough box at 70 F in the winter
- First time doing potato + pancetta in a while, still an all-time pie
- TJ’s pickled jalepeños are great on pizzas - just spicy enough
- 2x Bianca (Piccino): parmesan, pecorino, mozzarella, red pepper flakes, sliced garlic
- 2x Prosciutto + arugula
- Pepperoni + pepperoncini
- Dough didn’t rise much, I think the starter is a little weak and needs to be re-strenghtened
- Tossing arugula with olive oil + lemon made a big difference, add some balsamic next time
- Bianca (Piccino): pecorino, mozzerella, paremesean, sliced garlic, red pepper flakes
- Mediterranean (Pizzahacker): red onions, Spanish chorizo, Kalamata olives
- Margherita
- Pepperoni + pepperoncini
- Roasted mushroom (Beddia)
- 280g dough balls still a bit big, ~250g still the sweet spot
- Still have an inconsistent middle crust area, need to work on that
- Letting oven heat up for 45m+ resulted in a 750 F+ temp throughout
- 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
- 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.
- 3x Marghertia
- Hot Coppa
- Bottom comes out much crispier when stone is 800+ F
- 225g is really perfect dough size for Koda 13, small enough that the pie can get decent distance from the flame and thus crust doesn’t burnt
- Putting tomato sauce, cheese, olive oil all on beforehand gets everything nice and creamy
- Salami and basil only need 30s in the oven
- Apollonia (Una Pizza Napoletana): egg, pancetta, black pepper, garlic, basil
- 2x Marghertia
- Buffalo mozzarella was a huge upgrade; wet enough that it won’t dry out if it cooks on the pizza the entire time
- Tomato sauce made from Italbrand tomatoes also great; just pureed with a little salt
- 280g dough balls too big for Koda 13, need to target 225-250g
- Dough stretching technique needs work
- I think it’s getting too thin in the center and needs to be more even
- Don’t push down with finger tips so hard, pat it down with pads of fingers
- Try out this method of stretching dough
- 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
- 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
- Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour (source)
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Margherita
- Panna (Delfina): margherita + cream + sliced parmesan
- 3x Nduja + pepperoncini
- 3x Potato, pancetta, rosemary
- What went well:
- Pizzas came out really nice, best set I’ve ever done in general
- Both potato and nduja were delicious, fully flavored
- Smoked salt on the crown was nice
- Potato really benefitted from:
- Nice olive oil pre-cooking
- Lots of chives and rosemary
- Bianco sauce was a huge upgrade over my own tomato sauce
- Mixed with chilbrean was nice
- Olive oil drizzled on the margarita was really nice
- My dough stretching technique getting better, dough still feels pretty chewy and not as airy as Pizzahacker’s, but better than before
- What didn’t go well:
- Don’t feel like my cream situation is ideal
- Panna still not working, need to study Delfina’s
- 2x Prosicutto + arugula
- 2x Margherita
- What went well
- Dough was a perfect consistency when I started at 10:45a and cooked at 6:30a
- Turning the heat up between pizzas to get it back to 800 is a good move to get the bottom sufficiently crispy
- Prosciutto arugula was pretty good
- Flaky salt on all pretty good
- What didn’t go well
- Rolling pin doesn’t really help - makes it all too flat/uniform and doesn’t give it a good crust
- Taste is still not there
- Sort of feels like all the ingredients aren’t meshing
- Doesn’t feel like a full mouth feel, too bready or boring
- Tomato sauce is too chunky/watery?
- What to try next time
- Sample some pizzas from Pizzahacker, Delfina and study then (maybe go to the restaurant?)
- Look for a pizza making class
- Consult with Kamran
- Try store bought tomato sauce again
- 2x Margherita
- 2x Potato, pancetta, rosemary
- What worked
- Pizza station was perfect
- Potato pizza had promise
- Lots of bottom heat at first and then lower heat throughout seems like a good approach
- 4 dough balls for 6 people was right (with a 2 calzone mix ups)
- Semolina was much better than flour
- What didn’t
- Dough got too crusty to work with — by 7:30 was really tough to handle
- 7:30 was 9.5 hr of room temp, targeting a solid 8 would have been perf or maybe even less
- Doing pizzas after episode was very stressful, everyone was just waiting on me
- Dough kept getting too thin in the middle, too thick on sides — maybe try a rolling pin?
- Few of those pizzas were too bready, needed more toppings to stay interesting
- Many of them still not round, round really key to getting it right
- Flame too tall, pizzas kept catching on fire
- Bottom got too thin on multiple
- Was doing too much work on the paddles
- Stop doing garlic bread until I can figure out how to make it more interesting
- Next time
- Max 8 hours (maybe even less)
- Try rolling pin
- Turn the heat even lower when pizza is in there (to avoid catching on fire)
- Flaky Salt all the pizzas after they come out
- Sharp cheese on the potato pizza?
