The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Pizza, for now.

carlos's picture
carlos

Pizza, for now.

Hi to all,

I´ve taken a rest from trying to bake rustic type breads because I want to first get my natural leaven started and get it alive and try and make breads with that. So this weekend I´ve limited myself to pizza. I made this today for lunch using a dough recipe which I have devised over time after having read and tried other recipes and procedures. I am happy with this one and I think I will stick to it. It results in a very thin crust with a crispy edge. My oven takes a while to heat up and even then is a bit on the weak side, but I´ve installed refractory bricks and now bake on this and I like the results a whole lot.

My dough is what I believe they call a Neapolitan recipe which doesn´t use oil nor sugar. Just the flour, water, yeast and salt. I let it slow rise in the fridge around 22 hours then another 3 at room temp before dividing and scaling. I hand stretch and I find that this dough is quite pliable and will not tear easily.

Oh and the sauce is also my own. This one has a ragú of meat on it (I will NOT call it a "bolognese", don´t worry) as well as mushrooms. I was able to make three pizzas about 38 cms in diameter (about 15 ins?)

Thanks for looking,

Carlos

Martyn's picture
Martyn

Well Carlos it looks ok, but the test is in the eating! You will need to send me several samples before I can give my approval ;-)

Seriously, that looks fantastic!

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

Great looking pizza and I am laughing at the nearly empty wine glass and the untouched pizza. Same thing always happen to me, apparently baking is fueled by lots of wine. :P

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

It's time again to post this classic instructional video.

How to make sourdough bread

Enjoy!

David

 

JMonkey's picture
JMonkey

How have I missed seeing this all these years. "Ouch! Oh sh**!" Hilarious! "Just double something."

dstroy's picture
dstroy

lol! I've never heard it refered to quite as "form by doing the ramalamadingdong" - awesome :D

txfarmer's picture
txfarmer

LOL, so funny!

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

Sylvia

3 Olives's picture
3 Olives

Carlos,

Looks great! Please share your recipe if you don't mind.

carlos's picture
carlos

I should have chosen another object to give scale to the photo and not the almost-empty glass of wine!!! To clarify, that was the third of the three pizzas I made--we had gone through the first two already, hence the lesser amount of wine (excuses, excuses)...

I use 500 gms strong flour, 300 gms water, 20gms fresh yeast (it sounds like a whole lot, I know, but there it is and it works for me) and two teaspoons salt. I had started with a tablespoon salt before but the feedback was that it was too salty. The resulting dough is about 760-800gms in weight.

I just mentioned this pizza to an italian friend and she was scandalized by the ragú as a topping. Ha! I knew she would have something to say! My apologies therefore to any Italian friends out there...must be the influence from Sbarro that makes me crave for a meat lover´s pizza.

Daisy, I can send you the bricks. I have a source very near the house. Seventy-five cents a brick. Then add about ten times that for postal charges :-))!! When you say tortilla I still think of what we have here and wonder "what does that have to do with dough?" This pic is for you.

carlos's picture
carlos

Hi again!

I´ve decided to try another pizza crust recipe, this time using sourdough. This was made using Jeff Varasano´s recipe -- I believe others have tried it and posted their results in "A Pizza Primer".(www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm) I used the proportions stated on his "spreadsheet" and tried my best with the oven I have to get the heat from the top  going also.

Sorry if I´m being redundant, but this pizza thing has become an obsession. I think I will throw my recipe out (above)and stick with this one.

(No wine glass, this time--no evidence)