Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade Pizza (20 page)

Once the pizza moves freely on the peel, you can easily slide it onto the baking stone by tilting the peel and shuffling the peel a bit to slide the pizza off. I have found that you are actually better off holding the pizza peel directly above the stone (as if you just intend to set the peel onto the stone) and focus on sliding the pizza peel out from under the pizza rather than trying to slide the pizza off the peel onto the baking stone. It seems like a small difference but I have found this distinction to be important. Pulling the peel out works much more easily and consistently.

My (messy) experience suggests that a wooden pizza peel works better for placing a pizza into the oven and onto the baking stone than any metal kitchen implement. They really are not very expensive, so go ahead, and buy one. I also think that a metal-bladed pizza peel works better for removing a pizza from the oven than any other tool. However, a wooden bladed pizza peel that has a tapered front edge (as most pizza peels do) also works well for removing pizza from the stone in the oven.

Once the pizza has been cooked, the bottom of the crust is fairly firm and generally does not stick to the stone. To remove the pizza from the oven, just slide the peel between the pizza and the stone while keeping the peel flat and mostly parallel to the surface of the stone. Once the peel is fully underneath the pizza, lift the peel (with the pizza on it) up and out of the oven. Be careful not to touch the stone or any part of the oven or racks with any part of your body, as they are very hot.

The cooked pizza will slide more easily than the uncooked pizza did so be careful not to drop it!

If any cheese or sauce seeped through a hole in the pizza, it may stick slightly to the baking stone. If this happens, use the pizza peel like a spatula to break the bond between the pizza and the stone much like you would pick up a hamburger or pancake with a spatula. A metal-bladed pizza peel works better for this than a wooden-bladed peel does and it is one of the key reasons that I purchased one. However, you can still use a wooden peel.

See the section entitled “Pizza Peel” in the Pizza-making Equipment chapter on
page 26
for more information on pizza peels.

Baking Pizza

Baking Time

Baking time varies; it depends mostly on how much dough, sauce, and toppings there are to heat. The more toppings and crust, the longer it will take to bake; the less crust and fewer toppings, the less time it will take. A thin-style pizza with sparse toppings usually cooks on a baking stone in about ten to twelve minutes (or even less if there are very few toppings) while a thick-style pizza cooked in a pan may take forty to fifty minutes. An under-cooked or overcooked pizza is not desirable, so you need to know how to tell when a pizza is properly cooked. No need to worry, this section will teach you that!

Oven temperatures and heating capacity vary a lot! This has a large impact on baking time. The length of time the oven and stone have been preheated also has an effect on baking time. You may find your thin-style pizza takes anywhere from eight to fifteen minutes to cook and your thick-crust pizza takes anywhere from thirty to sixty-five minutes. Watch your first few pizzas carefully to get an idea of how your oven behaves.

The amount of dough, sauce, and toppings that makes up a pizza also has an impact on the time it takes to bake that pizza. A pizza having a pound of meat, a pound of cheese, and a few cups of sauce will take almost twice as long as a pizza with a half-pound of meat, 8 ounces of cheese, and a cup of sauce. Just be aware of the amount of stuff that you place on your pizza as you sort out how long it is likely to take to bake. You will see the amount of time listed for the various style of pizza gives a good range and starting point for you to adjust to your specific oven and pizza combination.

You want to bake the pizza until the crust is nicely browned and crispy on top as well as on the bottom, but not overdone. In addition, the toppings should heat through. The key is to bake the pizza (any kind of flat pizza) until the toppings are boiling over the entire surface of the pizza. The cheese and sauce should be bubbling slightly; in most cases, the cheese and edges of the dough will brown nicely, too. This ensures that the toppings and sauce have heated to the right temperature. Once the toppings are bubbling, you can decide how brown you want the crust to be. Start watching the pizza closely and take it out of the oven just as it reaches the level of brownness you desire. If you cook the pizza much longer, the crust will become too hard.

Baking Pizza on a Stone

Remember to preheat the stone in the oven for an hour (be sure to preheat it at least 30 minutes) prior to baking.

Immediately prior to putting the pizza in the oven, you need to loosen the pizza on the peel so that it will slide off easily. Holding the pizza peel by the handle, give the pizza peel a few slight shakes back and forth to shuffle and loosen the pie. Gently slide the pizza onto the stones by placing the pizza peel into the oven over the baking stone then with two or three small jerks, inch the peel out from under the pizza and the pizza off the peel onto the stones. If everything goes as planned, this will leave the undamaged pizza centered on the stones. Handling an uncooked pizza on a pizza peel takes practice, so do not worry if it feels awkward the first few times.

Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for eleven to thirteen minutes; the actual baking time may vary from eight to fifteen minutes depending on the oven, but be careful not to bake too long or too short. You want to bake the pizza so that the toppings are bubbling and the crust is nicely browned and crunchy-chewy, but not overdone.

Baking Pizza on a Pizza Screen

After you assemble the pizza on the pizza screen, you place the entire pizza screen on the middle rack in the oven. After the pizza is cooked, you lift the entire screen out of the oven; be careful because the screen will be very hot.

Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for eleven to thirteen minutes; the actual baking time may vary from eight to fifteen minutes depending on the oven, but be careful not to bake too long. You want to bake the pizza so that the toppings are bubbling and the crust is nicely browned and crunchy-chewy, but not overdone.

Baking Pizza in a Pan

Baking pizza in a pan takes a little longer than on a baking stone because the pan make the heat transfer to the bottom of the pizza take longer. You place the pizza pan in the oven on the lowest rack for a few minutes to get the pan hot and start making the crust crisp. Then you move the pizza to the middle rack and you lower the temperature for the rest of the baking time. The instructions give a range of time because the temperature of different ovens can vary. Just keep an eye on the sauce and the edges of the pizza.

For a thin-style pizza, place the pizza pan in the oven on the lowest rack. Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for five minutes. Move the pizza pan to the middle rack and lower the temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for an additional five to ten minutes until the sauce bubbles and the crust has browned lightly.

For a Sicilian-style pizza (that uses a sauce-first assembly), place the pizza pan in the oven on the lowest rack. Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for five minutes. Move the pizza pan to the middle rack and lower the temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for an additional ten to fifteen minutes until the sauce and cheese bubbles and the crust has browned lightly.

For Chicago-style pizza (that uses a cheese-first assembly), place the pizza pan in the oven on the lowest rack. Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes. Move the pizza pan to the middle rack and lower the temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for an additional fifteen to twenty-five minutes until the cheese bubbles and the crust has browned lightly.

Adjusting Baking Temperature

Ovens vary in the maximum temperature they provide as well as the amount of heat they generate. I have listed 500 degrees as the temperature because it is the hottest temperature that virtually all home ovens have as their maximum temperature. Some ovens have a setting at 550 degrees. You can vary the temperature setting from 450 to 550 degrees without making substantial changes to your baking or the techniques described here. As mentioned elsewhere, you will need to figure out what length of baking works best for your oven. So, go ahead and experiment! Just keep an eye on the pizzas you bake as you make temperature adjustments. Remember what works and use it in the future. This is part of your continual improvement!

This temperature adjustment is especially important if you use the convection feature of your oven. The convection fan blows the hot air around the oven and this active heat distribution will cook the pizza differently. You can certainly use it effectively but you may need to take notes and adjust a bit. Because there is a fan that blows the heat around the oven, the heat transfer to the food is a little bit more efficient. The instructions of your oven will typically tell how to adjust the baking instructions for a regular recipe to steps that are suitable for your convection oven. Typically, you reduce the baking temperature by 50 degrees Fahrenheit when you use a convection oven. Therefore, you can try starting with your convection oven set to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Note how this works, make adjustments, and keep experimenting until you are satisfied with the results! Because each brand convection oven behaves somewhat differently, I cannot give you guidance that is more detailed.

Adjusting Crust Crunchiness

Individual people have different preferences about how crispy or soft they like their pizza crust. You can easily vary the crunchiness by adjusting the amount of time the pizza bakes. Bake your pizza longer to create crispier crust on the bottom and bake it shorter for softer crust.

If you find the pizza toppings burn, or are not cooked enough when you bake the crust to your liking, you may need to make some adjustments in your baking technique. You should first try baking the pizza either higher or lower in your oven. To cook the toppings faster to produce a softer crust when the pizza finishes baking try baking the pizza higher in oven. This keeps the top of the pizza in the hotter part of the oven and this should help the toppings cook faster. Alternatively, you can move the pizza lower (at least until you reach the bottom rack, that is); this should allow the toppings to cook more slowly producing a crispier crust when the pizza is done.