The recipe from last week worked very well. The dough was very workable, though a little wet, and it turned out to be fairly crisp. Next time, I will increase the cook time on the lower rack to 11 minutes.
I think I will also reduce the amount of water to 1 cup. The dough was a little wet and sticky, and I ended up adding more flour that I wanted.
I also ran out of pizza cheese and had to use mexican cheese on one pie. It worked really well, with some green peppers on there. Tasty.
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Hi, John,
I can only partially share my recipe, because I only sort of use one. Still, I do have a couple of thoughts.
First, it's harder to get dough to rise with only whole wheat flower; it takes longer, so you need to take that into consideration if you're doing that.
Second, 425 seems a little low, and that could contribute to the lack of crispness. I bake mine at 500.
Making the dough thinner tends to make it crisper.
Another factor that can contribute to crisper dough is what you're baking on. When I worked at Little Caesars we would form the pizza on a wooden paddle, then slide it off onto revolving metal shelves, so that the bottom of the crust would be right on a very hot surface. Our oven would be at 510 or 525, I don't remember the exact temperature. I've heard of people doing it at home by using quarry tile in the oven, putting them on one of the racks until they were good and hot, and baking the pizza on them.
What Kevin does that helps make the crust crisp is that he uses these perforated metal pizza pans, so the hot air gets right up to the dough.
Oh yeah, my recipe:
Dissolve 1 Tb. yeast in 1/2 cup warm water with a little sugar.
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
Blend in Cuisinart.
Add water and start the Cuisinart running. Pour in some oil (sorry, I don't measure it, but probably 1/4-1/2 cup.
Continue to run processor, pouring water in until it forms an elastic ball of dough.
Divide in half, form two balls, cover and allow it to rest.
Makes enough for two pies.
I'll try increasing the temperature a bit. I've been reluctant to raise the temperature too much because Darlene really doesn't like anything burnt or well done. I suppose I'll just nudge it up somewhere in the neighborhood of 475 and see how that does. I'm not really looking for a 'crispy' crust, just one that is a little firmer than what I had been getting before.
Your recipe uses a lot less water and a lot more oil that mine. Do you know what the oil does in the recipe exactly?
It's hard to say how much water or oil I use, since I don't measure them. Probably 1/4 cup of oil is okay. The oil makes the dough more elastic. I probably use a total of a cup of liquid, but it doesn't get measured because I just add it until the dough looks right. If you're not using a processor it probably works the same way, except that you will have put all the liquid in at the beginning of the process, and then you add flour gradually until you get the desired texture. If it's too sticky, add more flour.
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