Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade Pizza (13 page)

Rising allows the yeast to multiply; the yeast creates little bubbles of gas, which make the dough increase in volume. After the pizza is shaped, the gas bubbles expand further to give the dough its nice texture that is light, not dense.

Lightly oil a mixing bowl with olive oil. If you are using the same bowl in which you mixed the dough, do not worry about cleaning the bowl, and just wipe out the loose flour and bits of dough before oiling it. Place the dough in the bottom of the bowl, and then turn it over so that both sides are oiled. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap then place a towel over it; the yeast gives off a little heat while the dough rises and the towel keeps this heat in and the plastic wrap keeps the dough from sticking to the towel. Place the bowl in a warm, draft free place and let it rise until it has doubled in volume (about one hour for regular yeast, thirty minutes for quick-rise yeast). The dough has completed rising when it has about doubled in volume and two fingers poked into the dough leave an impression.

Gentle heat makes rising go faster but be careful not to let the dough get hotter than lukewarm or the yeast may die. Rising too long is okay, but not letting the dough rise enough will make it hard to stretch and dense. It is not an exact science so do not be too concerned.

It is very convenient to use zip-seal plastic bags to hold rising dough. First, spray the inside with non-stick cooking spray, then pop the dough ball into the bag, and seal it. You can wrap the bag in a towel to hold the heat. Be sure to use a bag that allows the dough to double in size. I use a gallon-size bag for a three to four cup dough recipe.

You really have a lot of flexibility in where you let the dough rise, what type of container you use, and how long you let the dough rise. This flexibility allows you to fit pizza making into your busy schedule. For instance, if you want to make the pizza dough in the morning, you can let the dough rise all day on the counter. If you want to make the dough the night before, you can let it rise in the refrigerator for most of the day, then let it come up to room temperature just before shaping the pizza.

If you let the dough rise for longer than a few hours, the dough may just fall down and start rising again. After such a long rise, the dough will be a little more sticky and slack, but if you are just a little more careful when handling it, the dough will work just fine. This will not hurt the dough as long as it does not rise for more than twelve hours or so. If the dough rises for too long, the chemicals created by the yeast as it multiplies can soften the gluten. When this happens, the dough may no longer hold together and may tear very easily when shaped.

Slow, Cold Rising

A long, slow rise can improve the dough’s taste. However, you do not want the dough to over rise. How do you balance these seemingly opposite factors? You can achieve a long rise without the ill effects of overactive yeast by allowing the dough to rise in the refrigerator. The lower temperatures keep the yeast’s biological processes going slowly so they will reproduce more slowly hence making the dough rise slowly. The longer rise time allows enzymes to work on the flour’s components, thereby developing the fullest flavor of the flour. Using this technique will result in the best-tasting pizza dough for any of the dough recipes in the book but it does mean that you have to plan for the extended rise time.

You can let the dough rise in the refrigerator overnight or up to thirty-six hours without adjusting the recipes. When you are ready to use the dough let it come to room temperature by sitting on the counter for an hour or two. See
page 55
for instructions.

Quick Rising

On the other hand, if you are in a hurry, you can let the dough rise in a warm oven or on the top of your clothes dryer to speed the rising. Did I say you could use a clothes dryer? It does not stop there. You can use almost any warm place to speed up the rising process. Be creative to find out what works best for you. A warming drawer or the hood of a car that has just finished running in the garage will suffice. Use your imagination and choose a method that fits you! My father puts his dough on top of his gas range under an aluminum-foil covered box. The box holds in the heat created by the pilot light to keep the dough warm.

You can even let dough rise in a microwave. As long as your microwave will not melt cold butter with two minutes time on its lowest setting, you can zap the dough on that lowest setting (in a non-metallic bowl, of course) for one to two minutes at a time every few minutes. This can cause the dough to rise double in about fifteen to twenty minutes if you use quick-rise yeast!

Preparing Your Oven

Now that you have set aside the dough so that it will rise, it is a perfect time to prepare your oven to bake the pizza. You need to do this in advance of when you intend to bake the pizza anyway, so let the oven come up to temperature while the dough rises. You do not have to turn on the oven now. You may want to wait until sometime later, especially if you expect the dough to rise for a very long time. On the other hand, you may find that it works well to turn on the oven as you set aside the dough to rise. I frequently do this as I prepare pizza at home.

Your home oven is all you need to make great homemade pizza. By using the pizza pans, pizza screens, or a baking stone you will turn your oven into a fine pizza-baking machine! Read on to find out how.

Can you cook multiple pizzas, at the same time in one oven? I have tried placing two pizza stones in one oven, to get pizzas baked faster. Unfortunately, it did not work out for me. I found that each pizza cooked more slowly with two stones in the oven, so there was no significant improvement in the rate at which I could bake pizzas. Of course, it might work in your oven. So, try it if you want!

If you have a double oven, you are in business! You can put one pizza stone in each oven and cook two pizzas simultaneously. If you have a convection oven, you can put two baking stones in the oven and use the convection feature to keep the heat even throughout the oven so that the two pizzas will cook evenly. You will need to experiment with the temperature setting in order to find out what works best for your oven with two baking stones in it.

Creating Your Own Thin-style Pizza Oven

Pizzerias cook Thin-style pizza by sliding it directly onto the floor of the pizza oven using a pizza peel. Since your home oven has no baking deck in it, we need to simulate this capability.

A baking stone is the answer! It is a circle or rectangle made of unglazed ceramic material. Another type of baking stone consists of a number of ceramic tiles held together in a metal frame. Learn more about baking stones in the equipment chapter on
page 22.
You place the baking stone in the oven on a rack placed in the lowest position and heated to about 500 degrees Fahrenheit. You assemble the pizza on the pizza peel and you slide the pizza (carefully!) directly onto the baking stone to cook it. The high heat and porous surface of the stone allows you to duplicate the pizzeria-style thin crust in your home. Placing the stone on the oven’s lowest rack helps heat the stone while still leaving space around the stone to let the heat move throughout the oven as designed. You may need to experiment to find which location within your oven works best for a making pizza on a baking stone. If the top is not done when the crust is done, try moving the stone up. If the top is too done, lower it.

Some pizzerias bake pizza on a pizza screen. The pizza screen is an expanded metal grid shaped in a circle (see
page 27
). You lightly oil the pizza screen then you assemble the pizza directly on the screen. You then place the whole screen with the pizza on into the preheated oven; the pizza bakes on the screen. The holes in the pizza screen allow the crust to get crispy while it bakes.

Although pizza screens are easier to handle than sliding a pizza onto a baking stone with a pizza peel, in my opinion the texture of a crust baked on a pizza screen is not as good as that of one baked on a baking stone. Consequently, I use the baking stone most frequently.

Creating Your Own Thick-style Pizza Oven

Pizzeria ovens have much higher heat capacities and run at higher temperatures than your home oven. This helps create a crunchy crust even when the pizza bakes in a pan. Since your home oven cannot generate the same kind of heat, we have to take some special steps to create the proper crust when the pizza bakes in a pan.

Place one rack at the lowest level of the oven and another one in the middle of the oven; then preheat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour (or until the pizza is ready to bake). The pizza is cooked on the lowest rack for a few minutes to get the pan hot and start the crust baking, and is then moved up to the middle rack to finish cooking.

Preparing Toppings

Preparing toppings for pizza is straightforward. Follow the recipe or recipes you have chosen for your toppings. Typically, you can make the sauce and prepare the toppings while the dough rises. I hope that you will not be caught missing any critical ingredients. If so, try to improvise and adjust your plans. Most times, you will find a reasonable contingency plan.

Timing your activities can be tricky. Ideally, the toppings would be finished right when you need them. In practice, this seldom happens so perfectly. As a result, you might need to let the toppings sit for a while as the dough rises or rests. You may choose to prepare your toppings well in advance and store them.