Anyone try using Type "00" flour for pizza dough, baked in a standard kitchen oven? I've tried King Arthur Flour's "Italian style" flour. It made a very slack dough, which took some getting used to. I don't know whether imported Type "00" would differ much from KA's.
I've been placing the pizza pan directly onto the bottom of a small oven, with decent results. Does using a baking stone placed on the bottom make much of a difference? Sometimes I'll place the tray between the bottom of the oven and a baking stone and slide the pizza onto the stone for a little extra crispy crust bottom.
Use bog standard bread flower as it has slightly more protein than type
00 for me. Make sure it's a reasonable wet mix that's very pliable.
Tried something at the weekend: Put a pizza on the top shelf of the oven for ten minutes, at 220 Celsius (428 Fahrenheit), then slide the pizza off the stone onto the top shelf of the oven for another 5-10 mins, the experiment was to get a good crispy bottom on the pizza, which I don't get just by cooking on the stone, plus it's too big for the available pizza tins with the perforated bottoms. Have to say it worked a treat; moist topping well cooked pizza and crispy, well browned, underside.
It was quite a thick base so for a thinner pizza you could cut the above times by half or so depending on how good your oven is.
I have good luck with King Arthur's bread flour, but I add about a half ounce of pure gluten (which you can get in most grocery stores) to the formula. Gluten is the protien that makes dough crispy. I hope that helps.
I've seen pictures where two baking stones are kept apart by a few bricks inside an oven. I wonder how well this method works for baking pizza. I'm getting a bit obsessive about making pizza again. I'd need another stone and a few bricks. Hmmm. Might this be just a silly waste of money?
I've read that some people mess with their ovens in order to acheive higher temperatures. My oven goes to a maximum of 500 degrees F. I wonder how much more I could crank of of that thing before it explodes.
I've never heard of adding gluten to pizza dough. I might find some at Whole Foods Market. The supermarkets around here don't have any. This sounds like a tasty experiment.
"Baking Mad" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
Don't use a pizza pan, except to serve the pizza. Always use a stone at least 1/2 inch thick, heated for one hour to 550F. I think you can more or less duplicate type 00 by using 2/3 all purpose flour and 1/3 cake flour. I've asked around the Italian markets in the SF Bay Area for type 00 flour without any success. I've come to the conclusion that in the pursuit of the ultimate home pizza one should forget that. I use all purpose flour, usually KA. Whatever you use, it should be unbleached. Always use a preferment, like biga, poolish, or just old dough. You can also use very little yeast/flour and let your dough rise very slowly overnight in the frig. Use a "wet" dough, as do Julia Child, Alice Waters, Peter Reinhardt and Wolffie Puck do; three cups flour, 1.25 cups water, salt and yeast. I, as most, add oil, usually 2TB to the previous mix. If I'm making pizza and I know it that morning I make a poolish, with 1 cup flour, 1/4/-1/2 tsp yeast, and 1 cup H2O, and let it bubble all day. That gets added to 2 cups flour, salt, olive oil, .25 cups water, and with or without additional yeast, depending on the activity of your poolish, the temperature, and when you want to make your pizza. Then, don't overknead. I only rise once, being careful not to over-rise. Divide dough into 2-3 balls. When you make your pizza, heat heavy stone to 550F for one hour. Carefully stretch a dough ball to pizza size, don't use a rolling pin, place it on your paddle, top and bake for 6-7 minutes at 550F. Spray H20 inside the oven
Actually, the gluten should make it both chewy and crispy. The gluten, in my experience, helps make the dough more cohesive and easier to stretch without breaking, and results in a more dense hole structure when baking. A higher gluten dough will also burn faster though. So if you're looking for a crisp bottom and a spongy outter crust, more gluten is probably for you. I've recently started using KA Bread Flour, which is about 13% protein.
InspirePoint website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.