Newbie pizza maker needs advice! What are favorite surfaces for baking the pizza on (grill not an option) as I've seen so many in different recipes on this site. Thanks.
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Newbie pizza maker needs advice! What are favorite surfaces for baking the pizza on (grill not an option) as I've seen so many in different recipes on this site. Thanks.
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We make pizza at home a lot. I have a conventional electric oven that doesn't get pizza-oven hot, so I do a couple of things to try to get the crust right because I like it thin and crispy. I use the Trader Joe's white dough (99 cents a bag) and one bag makes four medium pies, two on a sheet:
I get the toppings out and ready to go, and I heat up the sauce in a saucepan.
I turn cookie sheets upside-down for easily "slide-ability." Heat those up in the oven at 450 degrees while I stretch out the dough as thin as possible and place on the peel (with cornmeal on the peel). I put two 9" crusts on each sheet, or sometimes I make one big oval crust. I keep telling myself I should buy (4) round pizza pans so I can make them bigger, but until I do the small pies sized to fit cookie sheets are my M.O.
Slide those onto the baking sheets - no toppings yet - and let them cook for 3-4 minutes until "dry" looking. I pull out the sheets, quickly ladle on the warm sauce and add the toppings. Place the sheets back in the oven and cook another 4 minutes or so,
then I pull out each sheet, turn it 180 degrees so that they get golden-brown evenly, then I slide the pies off of the sheets right onto the oven racks. This way the crust gets crisp.
I can turn out a lot of pizzas because I can work on the next two while the first two are baking, etc. I pull them out with the peel by pulling the edge of each pie onto the peel with my [asbestos] fingers.
My first stone was thin and it cracked in two one day, so I bought another, but I usually want to make a lot of pies and my one stone doesn't fit the bill. So it sits in a drawer. I love my peel though!
Good luck with your experimenting, please post your results!