Comments on: Homemade Pizza… ERROR

By: A Homemade Italian Feast - Veggie+Meat Lasagna, Homemade Italian Bread » Joyful Abode

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:01:41 +0000

[…] tried to make homemade bread dough several times, mostly for pizza crust. First I had a major ERROR, then a success with the help of the bread machine, and then another bread-machine-less ERROR. It […]

By: Homemade Pizza - Success! » Joyful Abode

Homemade Pizza - Success! » Joyful Abode — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:00:31 +0000

[…] The last time I tried to make homemade pizza, it resulted in a sad looking product that had my husband saying, “Well, it’s not totally disgusting.” […]

By: BreadBox

BreadBox — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:35:36 +0000

Doug is right about the salt: it can even kill the yeast if you are unlucky. I’d recommend checking out the website of A Year In Bread at http://ayearinbread.earthandhearth.com/
They have lots of good recipes, and in particular some good pizza stuff. I’d also be happy to send you some recipes I wrote up when I was teaching breadmaking on a semi-regular basis. Email me if you want them.

A tip for cutting the prep time after a long day at work: make the dough a day or four ahead of time, put it in a ziplock bag in the fridge (make sure that there is enough room in the bag for the dough to expand!) Take it out a half hour or so before you want to bake it: let it relax, stretch it or spin it, top it and bake it.

By: yayanana

yayanana — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:10:17 +0000

Absolutely on the whole milk mozzerella! and for the sauce, if you make a seasoned sauce based on tomato paste, you might be real happy.

By: charlie

charlie — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:58:43 +0000

Ditto on the whole milk mozzarella. It’s better anyway.

When I made pizza dough, I’d put it in the bathroom to rise while a shower of only hot water was running with the curtain open. Obviously I’d turn off the water at a certain point, but the hot moistness is achieved very easily that way.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:11:08 +0000

I’m a big fan of the pizza dough recipe in How to Cook Everything — works every time!

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:46:59 +0000

Unless it is a recipe which explicitly needs a slow rise, starting your yeast separately as you described should be a defaut action. I’d even hold off on the salt until I knew the yeast was started (foamy). Salt slows the little guys doing their job.

By: Stormimay

Stormimay — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:38:38 +0000

Hey, someone else with yeast issues! lol I was a good cook/baker for years before I managed to figure out yeast; I felt like such a failure there. I learned by starting with yeast-based sourdough starters from allrecipes.com I know that using yeast in sourdough starter is cheating, but it works and it’s easier.
I just use plain spaghetti sauce for pizza.
Whole milk mozzarella is much better if you want strings. You may have to look for it in a different section of the grocery store. I haven’t tried it packed in water. I like adding shredded colby/jack to my pizzas too.

By: mub

mub — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:11:23 +0000

http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/breads/yeast/pizzadough.html

That’s the recipe I always use to make pizza dough, but it really does take awhile for it to rise… I just toss it into my breadmaker on the dough setting and don’t mess with it until it beeps. I use basic spaghetti sauce (without meat and chunks of onion) for my sauce and it works out really well. I only get stringy cheese when I use mozzarella packed in water. I don’t know if it’s because the pre-shredded kind has such a low moisture content or what.

I am curious about the recipe you used for the dough, because sometimes I want a thin crunchy non-yeasty recipe!

By: Leslie

Leslie — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:10:00 +0000

In every yeast dough recipe I’ve used, you don’t mix the salt with the water/sugar/yeast mixture since I believe it kills the yeast. :/

I’ve had good luck with this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Quick-and-Easy-Pizza-Crust/Detail.aspx

Hope this helps.