Baking Pizza in a Home Oven

See full discussion
  Log in or sign up to participate in this discussion.
With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.

Discussions can branch out indefinitely. Zoom out for the bird’s-eye view.

Ingredients

  • Store-bought dough (1 pound)
  • Crushed tomatoes (100g)
  • Mozzarella (whole milk, shredded, 150g)

Then, for garnish:

  • Oregano
  • Fresh basil leaves
  • 5g of salt

Steps

  1. Preheat oven for 1 hour. Ends up somewhere between 450 and 500°F.
  2. Preheat pizza steel for 30 min on top rack underneath broiler, reaches about 620°F.
  3. Rest dough at room temperature for about 1.5 hours. It felt like it had reached about room temp.
  4. Add salt to the tomato sauce.
  5. Grate cheese.
  6. Stretch the dough.
  7. Dust the pizza peel with flour.
  8. Remove excess flour from dough.
  9. Place dough on peel.
  10. Add the tomato sauce.
  11. Add cheese.
  12. Place dough on steel; still on top rack with the broiler on.
  13. Bake for 2.5 minutes.
  14. Take out to add cheese.
  15. Move to bottom rack for another 2.5 minutes.
  16. Move back to top rack for 1 min.

Results (markedly better again than last time):

Got the thermo gun today and played around with it. If I put the steel on the bottom rack (which is directly above the heat source), it hovers at around 450 after about 40 min. But on the top rack with the broiler on, it hovered at around 620 after another 30 min. (It may reach that temp sooner, I didn’t check.) 620 is plenty hot to make pizza.

The dough came out really good this time. It was light and fluffy in most places, even had some crispy air bubbles. I had previously overcooked it – I think that’s why it got so hard last time.

I found myself moaning as I ate this pie and wanting more afterwards.

#1535 · · Dennis HackethalOP revised 16 days ago · context · 5th of 11 versions · Criticized7 criticim(s)

I need to stretch the dough better so it’s more circular.

#1513 · · Dennis HackethalOP, 22 days ago · Criticism of #1535

Improved since #1515 but could still be better.

#1538 · · Dennis HackethalOP revised 16 days ago · 2nd of 2 versions
#1538 · expand
#1513 · expand

The center of the dough got a touch too thin and I ripped a small hole in it.

#1536 · · Dennis HackethalOP, 16 days ago · Criticism of #1535
#1536 · expand

During parbaking, the pizza burnt slightly in the middle, on top. Next time, I can probably reduce the parbake time to 2 minutes. Or I could just move the steel to the middle rack before placing the pizza on it and do a single bake for about 5 minutes.

#1545 · · Dennis HackethalOP revised 16 days ago · 2nd of 2 versions · Criticism of #1535
#1545 · expand

Too much salt. Try 3 or 4g next time.

#1544 · · Dennis HackethalOP, 16 days ago · Criticism of #1535
#1544 · expand

The crust could be crispier.

#1547 · · Dennis HackethalOP, 16 days ago · Criticism of #1535

According to this site, making the crust thinner should make it crispier.

#1558 · · Dennis HackethalOP, 14 days ago
#1558 · expand
#1547 · expand

The dough ended up too spread out, too big, so I tried to ‘compress’ it a bit, which created wrinkles.

#1565 · · Dennis HackethalOP revised 13 days ago · 2nd of 2 versions · Criticism of #1535
#1565 · expand

Step 11 is wrong. I didn’t add the cheese until later.

#1569 · · Dennis HackethalOP, 11 days ago · Criticism of #1535
#1569 · expand
#1535 · expand