Passionate About Pizza Blog

Working with yeast dough can be a little intimidating.  You have seen a pizza chef stretching out pizza dough and throwing it around as if it is no big deal, but you may have thought, "I could never do that!"  Well, I am here to tell you that you can make a great pizza.  It is not difficult and my Passionate About Pizza Cookbook describes just how to do it.

The book describes:

• Mixing & Kneading Dough
• Letting Dough Rise & Making a Dough Ball
• Stretching, Rolling, and Pressing Pizza into Shape
• Assembling Pizza & Pizza Peel Technique
• Baking, Serving, Storing, & Reheating Pizza

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The goal is to mix the right amount of the proper ingredients together to create uniform dough. Good dough has all the ingredients evenly distributed throughout the dough. There are two basic methods – the dry mix and wet mix methods. Both work well, so use the method that suits your fancy. I generally use the wet mix method because it gives me a chance to see that the yeast is active.

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Pizza Pans

Pizza Screens

Baking Stone

Your home oven is all you need to make great pizza. Using pizza pans, pizza screens, or a baking stone will turn your oven into a fine pizza-baking machine!

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Here is an exchange PizzaMan had with a friend:

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Bill Morris asked a couple of questions:

I am making the sour dough starter sponge. After leaving it out for a couple of days, can I put in a closed jar in the refrigerator. (Well it expand and break the glass?)

Also, on page 140ish, Calif sour dough pizza and the next style, do not state how much sour dough starter to use in the recipe. Can you please clarify.

P.S.: I bought 3 books and everyone loves them.

PizzaMan replies:

The wild yeast in the sourdough starter will slow down when you refrigerate the starter but it will NOT stop entirely.  If you place it in a closed jar it may very well explode.  Virtually everyone recommends that you use a loose-fitting cover for any sourdough starter.

The California-style Sourdough recipe was written to use the entire quantity of the Sourdough Starter Sponge recipe on the prior page; in other words, a cup of water, a cup of flour, and 1/2 teaspoon yeast.  That works out to be something like 1 1/4 cup of sourdough starter if you already have one made.  Depending on the consistency of your sourdough starter you might need to adjust the amount of flour you use when making dough to reach the consistency you prefer.

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 Here is another consultation between PizzaMan and a friend:

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Kamodo style barbecue grills have become popular over the last decade.  One of the most commonly known versions is the Big Green Egg.  Kamodo cookers are made of thick ceramic material and can cook at low, medium, or very high temperatures. 

Kamodos can be used to make pizza if you prepare it properly.  Here are some tips:

Remember that pizza cooks from both the top and bottom at the same time.  Therefore, to bake pizza properly in a Kamodo, you need to move the pizza up toward the top of the cooker so that radiated heat from the Kamodo’s top cooks the top of the pizza.  Most people do this using the "plate setter" accessory that comes with the grill (or is purchased separately).  The plate setter has three legs and a flat surface.  Place the plate setter on the grill’s cooking grate and then put a round pizza stone on top of the plate setter.  You can adjust the height of the pizza stone by putting plates, fire bricks, or other spacers under the stone until you get even cooking on the top and bottom of the pizza.

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