I am not going to cut the safety lock off my oven just to make pizza.
One can always use a blowtorch to get that nice charrred crust.
wow. He's hacked his oven so he can bake at 800 degrees. Awesome.
If you're going that far, you may as well build the oven from scratch as well.
His comments on using less flour, having a wetter dough, cold rises, etc., are spot on, and applicable to a lot of bread making. I'm sure cooking a pizza at 800 degrees gives a better result, but I'm not about to give it a try at home. Part of the pleasure of homemade pizza lies in how it differs from that one would get from a pizzeria. Along with the possibility of making it with people you care about, and for fun, instead of as part of some big nerd quest.
Are you saying there's something not fun about big nerd quests?
Well, yes. Though I'm not saying that there's nothing fun about big nerd quests.
PS: See comment lower down re: Cook's Illustrated recipes.
I say this as someone who has gladly made things that take three days or more to prepare in various steps, and who has seriously contemplated the big recipe in The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth that takes four or five days. I love to spend a whole day preparing a big dinner for guests.
But this seems like WAY too much fucking hassle for the perfect pizza. I'm content to save that for when I go to Patsy's/Sally's etc. and the rest of the time, I'll do what I can with a basic pizza dough recipe and my pizza brick, and make the toppings the thing that stands out.
Damnit, ripping out the safety on the oven would have been a perfect project while I was renting in college. Now that I own my oven? Not so much.
But....... so much effort... and it's good pizza, that brick-oven style pizza, but not that good.
But once you've got it down, you've got it!
Not, you know, that I'm likely to undertake the project any time soon. But surely we can all agree with the sentiment expressed in the post title.
I just made a pretty decent pizza today. I grilled the crust outside on the gas grill, and then topped it and finished it in the oven. Not as good, I'm sure, as 800 degree pizza, but not bad.
Pizza seems to me like one of those things that's generally best left to professionals. Like tire-making or international shipping.
Just thank god that that guy isn't a terrorist. He'd be really good at it, with his attention to detail and fanaticism.
perhaps the FBI should be notified, come to think about it. He had an insane glint in hsi eye.
You're right; I'll make my own tires yet!
On the same morning, I thought "this guy is crazy" (for cutting/disabling his oven so he can cook at oven-cleaning temps. Although, immediately when he said "cook them at 850deg" I thought-- "well, I knew that was one reason I couldn't really accomplish great home pizza" and "what *kind* of oven does he have?" then read on to his, uh, customization of his oven) and worked on the logistics for an upcoming project of cooking a 200lb hog in my back yard. So maybe crazy is a matter of perspective.
The craziness of my hog project is entirely different from this guy's pizza obsession, I'm just sure of it.
Yeah, you probably don't care about doing it right.
The nice thing about this is that everything in it is right (except that you really can get delicious lactobacilli out of a long slow ferment of a dough leavened solely with baker's yeast), even if any sane person is going to limit how far he or she is going to go in following it. I'm sure I go much farther than many people would consider reasonable, because I am a big bread nerd, and I know that the ways in which I hold back mean the pizza's just not as good. And I don't have a Patsy's or a Sally's to go to for something better. Still, I'm not going to break the lock on my oven anytime soon.
I'm not a big fan of going too far down the road of making the toppings the things that stand out (per 8), since I think pizzas are best served by being underloaded with toppings. Not that I don't like exotic toppings, but it seems hard to carry off that approach with a sufficiently light hand.
Did it take everyone forever to load this page? This is ridiculous.
I have not succeeded in fully loading the page any of the three times that I've tried, which is annoying, because I want to see some of the pretty pictures of pizza.
24: Why? So you can ogle the pizza's b00bies?
Perv.
You're just jealous because your pizza is a nasty old crone.
Actually, I don't even have a pizza. Just this nasty old scone [/groan].
But it's a pastry, so I feel free to troll!
The guy rules for hacking his oven. But is a mixer really necessary? I've always made pizza dough by hand, with good results. If I want to start baking bread (like 3-4 loaves a week) am I a fool not to break down and pony up for a mixer?redfoxtailshrub? Anyone?
28: With a mixer, it's as good and you don't have to focus on it for the 20 minutes -- If you enjoy it for the kneading, than keep kneading -- the bread won't be better from a mixer. But if you want the homemade bread and the time it takes gets in the way, a mixed is a good idea.
29 is right, but the other thing is that it's difficult for anyone to work with very wet doughs without a mixer.
And I do adore my KitchenAid.
That's exactly the kind of enabling I need while trying to justify the purchase of expensive kitchen equipment. Keep it coming, kidz!
Come to think of it, it would pay for itself in, like, a year...
kitchenaid has come out with a larger line of products-- make sure you get a motor powerful enough for whatever you think you're going to do.
For ciabatta dough you really want a mixer (someone up above mentioned wet dough).
Also, the grinder / sausage stuffer attachment I use a fair amount.
I bake sweets more than bread, and that completely makes it worth it. I could probably cream butter to fluffiness by hand, but I'm not going to. The KitchenAid does it effortlessly.
Oh, yeah, if you're going to bring sweets into the picture as well, there's no question: if you can afford it, get a KitchenAid -- the stronger, the better, pretty much, though the bigger bowls aren't very good for things like beating just a few egg whites. I have a completely awesome recipe for gingerbread cookies that I absolutely could NOT make without the mixer. It involves seven or eight cups of flour and is incredibly stiff. My arm would fall off in six seconds if I tried to make it by hand. A KitchenAid is also indispensible for brioche. And you know you want to make your own brioche! (You do.)
And there are off-brand copper inserts for the KitchenAid bowls, which make egg whites pouf up like crazy [she said, about to wander off and make meringues...]
32: You can get a 450W KitchenAid dirt cheap at the moment, although I'll defer to the cogdoughsceti about whether that's enough RAW POWER to do your thing.
That is an insanely great deal, but everything I've read thus far suggests that the prospective bread baker should invest in the most powerful machine, especially given that it's potentially a lifetime purchase. I'd consider an Electrolux, but extras on the KitchenAid are too tempting. Mmmm. Sausage.
And yes, I want to make brioche. I want to make brioche right now for oeufs en meurette. That's the most insanely satisfying thing I can think of at the moment.
TomF--I think I'm willing to go gay for you.
All of the above is true about mixers, and I totally understand the appeal, but that said all my home baking is done with hand methods. Even really wet doughs, which I work with a lot, and super-stiff ones, which I don't work with very often, I do by hand. But then I'm a bit of a zealot about things like that.
I actually enjoy kneading, whisking, etc., and I also really like being able to see and feel the transformation the dough or egg whites or whatever undergo. I feel like I can control the results better and I gain better understanding and intuition when I'm using hand methods. Plus I like the quiet of it.
If you haven't baked much bread before, Jesus, I would recommend doing it by hand at least sometimes. You'll learn more and become a better baker. Four loaves of bread a week really isn't very much kneading, so you're not a fool to not pony up for a mixer. But if not having a mixer keeps you from baking, then by all means get that mixer.
The unplugged approach is really hard to make work on a commercial scale, though, although Lionel Poilâne has done it.
I actually enjoy kneading, whisking, etc., and I also really like being able to see and feel the transformation the dough or egg whites or whatever undergo. I feel like I can control the results better and I gain better understanding and intuition when I'm using hand methods. Plus I like the quiet of it.
This is exactly what's keeping me from getting a mixer, plus I feel double-plus virtuous when I do things by hand, without electricity. Even with a mixer, I'd still whip cream and beat eggs by hand. But I cook less, and less interestingly, with a pair of three-year-olds, whose monstrous appetites are one reason I should be cooking more (I really could save at least $300 a year just by baking bread at home). So I'm giving myself until the end of the year to devise a schedule for cooking the way I want to, and if it doesn't work, then Hel-looo KitchenAid.
Jesus: get the kitchenaid. it's not going to jump up and physically prevent you from whipping egg whites by hand, after all, if that's what you want to do. it just means that on occasions when you don't feel like putting in the time, you can stil have homemade parker house rolls. paaaaarker house roooolllllls. also, on the sweets thing, even if you don't think you are the biggest cake person ever, you will become one. it's astonishing how much better a plain yellow cake is if you lett the butter, sugar and eggs run in the mixer at med-high for 6 minutes. the sugar completely dissolves into the mixture, which turns white and fluffy. I always add the dry ingredients by hand so as not to overmix. you can also use the flat paddle attachment to cut in the fat for pasty or biscuits. finally, there are some yeast dough recipes which turn out infinitely better with a very wet dough--a dough much too wet to handle. really, a lot too wet. if you want to make ciabatta with big rough holes in it, you have to work with dough soup. I love my kitchen aid. mmm, teh pretty. get it get it get it!!! you'll just plain cook more nice things, and on the occasions when you want to get all artisanal up in the hizza, don't turn it on.
even if you don't think you are the biggest cake person ever, you will become one.
Argument against. Otherwise, point taken. Plus, if I don't get one, all the time I spent researching them will have gone to waste.
"Get all artisanal up in the hizza"? Can anyone provide a translation?
I meant "are suddenly seized with the desire to handcraft things. at your house."
I think we need to start using "artizza" or its variant, "artizzy". It will seriously up our street cred.
. . . a dough much too wet to handle. really, a lot too wet. if you want to make ciabatta with big rough holes in it, you have to work with dough soup.
Really, you can hand work extremely wet, soupy dough. I do it all the time. Ciabatta wasn't invented by KitchenAid.
But again, KitchenAids and the like do make a lot of things easier and quicker. And having one or more kids in the house would certainly make that an extremely attractive feature.
The pizza instructions are gone! Anyone have a backup?
Follow the link; there are mirrors.