This post is a series of questions and answers about our pizza crust. But, before we get to that, some background on what makes a great pizza crust in the first place.
What makes a great pizza crust?
The answer is: greatness. We are totally into this, and love to talk about it; but we also want to give you the opportunity to experience it for yourselves (and if you do, let us know how it goes!). This post will be an 8-part series of posts; Part 1 covers the main ingredients for great Pizza Crust , Part 2 covers our methods for creating perfect dough , and Part 3 covers the final steps in making our own perfect dough .
There are no shortcuts or shortcuts here: true greatness comes from hard work (and plenty of sweat), good planning and consistency; but even those things don’t come to you overnight. If you have been following us for any length of time you probably know that this site has been built from scratch by passionate entrepreneurs who have dedicated their lives to making amazing products. And while we may not have been as disciplined or consistent as they were, they were still able to make a living doing something they loved — so what’s stopping me? Did I get lucky? Did I write bad code? Did I miss something obvious? Did I fail at something because I didn’t follow some recipe someone else wrote years ago? No! To get here I had the support of my wife (who managed to pay off my previous mortgage) and my family — which helped me manage stress while preparing for this project.
The perfect pizza dough recipe
In a world where most commercial doughs are made from corn and wheat, you might expect to see many recipes for “big-box” commercial pizza crust. But that is not the case to any significant degree at all.
While there are plenty of recipes out there, nobody seems to have a perfect recipe. The reason is that it doesn’t matter how you make it, what kind of flour you use, or what kind of tomato sauce you put on it; if your dough doesn’t taste good, people won’t eat it and they certainly won’t take their money back.
The best way to get a pizza crust that will appeal to everyone (and particularly those who don’t like traditional pizza) is to make one from scratch. You could spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying to figure out the best way, but the point here is: if you find yourself spending a lot of time and money on something which isn’t really for you then why spend more money on something which is just not for you?
Here are some things we love about homemade pizza crusts:
• They are very easy to make – no fancy equipment required • They taste great – anything but store bought • They can be pretty much anything – we love using garlic powder as well as fresh herbs • They can be tailored to your own personal tastes • You don’t have too much control over their texture • You can roll them thin or super thick (even more than 12″ wide) • You can make different kinds – Philadelphia style thin or New York style thick (we like both) This post is quite long due to the fact that this topic has been covered in depth before but I hope it provides some additional information which might help other people who want to learn more about making their own pizza crusts. If so please share your ideas with us in comments below! And finally if there’s anyone who wants more information regarding our products feel free to contact us via email at hello@thepizzahowto.com
The importance of a hot, wood-fired oven
For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that no matter how good your pizza is, it will taste better if you bake it in an oven. This was the case for a long time: the idea that ovens were necessary for great pizza crust has been thoroughly debunked by people who have actually tasted the crusts of some of the world’s best pizzerias.
The idea that you need an oven to make a good pizza is based on a flawed understanding of how pizza is made — and so many other things at home and at work. It’s not only that an excellent pizza crust does not have to be made in an oven; it also doesn’t have to be made in a wood-fired oven either. You can use your wood-fired oven to make any kind of tasty, crispy dough — and you can use it to make pizza crust too!
If you are like most people, you don’t know how important a good pizza crust is yet, but there seems no reason why this knowledge shouldn’t become widespread, especially now with the proliferation of high-tech electric grills on our property.
So today I am going to share with you one of our favorite recipes for homemade Pizza Crust. We use this recipe when making our own dough (which we prefer) since we do not want any dust or flour on our hands when baking! And since we want ours to be super crispy and crunchy, we prefer using parchment paper rather than plastic wrap. But either way works just fine!
We love having this recipe handy for making future batches of homemade dough — which we keep for future batches of homemade dough too! We find that this recipe comes out perfectly every time and is very easy to make and store.
We also love having this recipe handy when dealing with leftover dough (which is often what happens). Just take one small piece from each batch so that they don’t go stale together! (Also see our naturally gluten free Pizza Crust Recipe here)
The perfect toppings for your pizza
A wood-fired pizza is a so much more than just a pizza. It’s about the process, the focus, the preparation. Getting that wood-fired crust right is in many ways more important than getting it right on your pizza.
So much of the food world seems to have a lot to learn from what we do: “Oh, I saw your pizza crust and I don’t think it’s fire-cooked enough.” “Oh, look at how good your beer is!” We could talk about how great your wine is for as long as we want but eventually you will come to realize that if you want to make sure a wine has aged properly, you need to understand what kind of wine it is and why it has been made that way.
The same applies for food; there are a lot of different things people can do at home to make their food taste better, from cooking techniques like the Italian method of slow-cooking and aging (which isn’t necessarily better), through airbrushing (which isn’t necessarily bad), through e-cooking (which isn’t necessarily worse). But they are all variations on something really fundamental: get that crust right first.
How to get the perfect char on your pizza crust
The global demand for pizza is enormous. But how are you supposed to get the perfect crust? There are a lot of factors at play here, from the type of flour you use to how long your dough rises, but the main tenet is that a good pizza crust needs some serious char.
It’s a matter of proportion: you want your pizza crust to be crispy without being too steamy. The key ingredient here is carbon dioxide (aka CO2), which will make your crust soggy and soft. That’s why it is so important to get it just right from the start. It’s also why we make our dough in-house, where we control every step of the manufacturing process.
Simply put, if you don’t measure out exactly enough flour or yeast and not enough water — or if your cupboards lack an open flame — you won’t have perfect-crust pizza — even for us!
The importance of a good pizza sauce
A great pizza crust is something we are all aware of, but it’s still a bit of a mystery to us. Pizza crusts are only three ingredients: flour, water and yeast. And before you start shaking your head at the idea of yeast, which is well known as a problematic ingredient on pizza, consider this: With the exception of the most complicated pizzas (for example lasagna) you can’t buy ready-made pizza sauce anywhere. Sure you can get a pizza with fresh tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella, but why should you? And there are no shortcuts to making your own pizza sauce — unless you want to spend hours standing over a kitchen stove.
So how do you go about achieving perfection? We don’t claim perfection for our pizza crusts but we do claim that a good crust requires three things:
• A balance between the dough and the sauce
• The right amount of moisture in the dough
• Flatness and evenness in distribution
With those in mind, here is our advice for making best-in-class pizza crusts (that are also tasty): 1) Always use an all-purpose flour 2) Only use unseasoned organic tomatoes 3) Vacuum seal your prepared dried tomato paste 4) Don’t forget the salt 5) Get rid of the sugar 6) Use salt like an artist would use salt 7) Never use sugar 8) Do both! 9) Use unseasoned organic tomatoes 10) No more than 3 parts flour 11) Never freeze 12) Keep it really moist 13) Always leave it out 24 hours 14) A touch of garlic 15) A touch of lemon 16 ) A dash of black pepper 17 ) A little cheese 18 ) Nothing more 19 ) Nothing less 20 ) Nothing equal 21 ) Nothing less 22 ) Nothing equal 23 ) Nothing equal 24 ) Just as good as anything else 25 ). If not better 26). If not better 27). Try one to make sure 28). If not better 29). If not better 30). If not better 31 ). If not better 32 ). If not worse 33 ). Try one to make sure 34 ). Try one just to be sure 35 ). Try one just to be sure 36 ). Try one just to be sure 37 ). Try one just to be sure 38 ). Its tastes like home 39 ). Its tastes like home 40 ). Its tastes like home 41 ). Its tastes like home 42 ))Its tastes like home 43 ))
Why a great pizza crust is essential for the perfect pizza
Pizza: The world’s favourite food.
So why is there such a love affair with that most basic of foods? Is it taste, or is it the simplicity? Is it the fact that you can eat a pizza almost anywhere, any time of day? So many other cuisines have their very own take on the treat, right? The truth is that pizza is a classic dish and every bit as universal as any other dish. And for that reason alone, there are so many ways to make yours perfect.
One thing we could all agree upon is that you can’t make a truly great pizza unless you use the best and freshest ingredients. Those ingredients should come from the freshest sources and be subjected to the most rigorous testing process.
For your pizza to be truly great, it needs to come from the best pizzeria at the finest restaurant in town (or in your own home). It needs to be made with fresh meats like beef and pork (and chicken if you want), fresh cheeses, high quality tomatoes and ideally fresh herbs (that way you get a nice aromatic flavour). You need a dough which is light and airy without being too heavy or too squishy — hence why our crusts are light but not spongy or greasy. And lastly, we need your oven to do its job properly so that your crust turns out crispy on all sides.
Your next step should be getting yourself up to speed with how each of these factors affects your dough recipe so that you can develop a successful recipe based on proven principles (the same principles which led us here in the first place). We are going to show you how these principles work by building our own pizza off an incredibly simple recipe: one more than just plain ol’ dough!
Although we think this has been done before (and well), we thought we would take this opportunity to share our expertise with fellow entrepreneurs who might not be as seasoned as us but still want their pizzas delicious!