Homemade pizza , does not cook probably - all doughy ? can you help

freda

Amazon have a pizza stone here at £14.99.

Yes, this one looks good. It can be a technique getting the stone hot then putting the pizza on it - I tend to roll out the dough, get ready/chop all the stuff for the top then take the stone out. I then assemble the pizza on the stone as fast as I can and whack it back in the oven. I've found if you transfer a made up uncooked pizza onto the stone it sometimes collapses!

Re. the garlic infused olive oil, that would be fine if you infuse it on the day you need it, but there are lots of nasty bugs etc that can grow and breed if you make your own flavoured oils. Manufacturers treat the ingredients so you don't get these, you can't treat them at home so you need to eat them up quickly. Theres info on the Food Safety website.

Pipkin

Thank you very much for your answers

The pizzas turned out pretty good for a first attempt!:T

I was really pleased.:rotfl:

pickle

At ASDA you can buy pizza pans which have holes in the bottom which cooks the underneath well.

HappyIdiotTalk

I make homemade pizza all the time and have been for a few years now. I get loads of complements on my bases, but I'm still prefecting the toppings. My dough is made in a bread maker, but you should get similar results making your dough by hand. I like my pizza's like the Italians do so I try and emulate them (why mess with hundreds of years of development).

The reason your getting doughy bases could be your cooking method. In the past I got similar results when I cooked two pizzas at a time. Now I only cook one at a time in a very hot oven and have never had the problem again.

Here are my accumulated hints and tips:

1) Use the strong bread floor, as strong as you can buy.
2) Measure your ingredients accurately, I use an electric scale.
3) Try using slightly more sugar than the recipe calls for (add 10%).
4) Use butter instead of olive oil for the fat.
5) After you've made the dough leave it to rest for 2 hours, but no more than 2.5 hours, this improves the base massively! If you dont do anything else do this! But dont leave it more than 2.5 hours because the dough wil disintegrate when you roll it out if you leave it longer.
6) For your tomato sauce blitz a tin of good tomatos (I use Cirio), with a pinch of salt, smaller pinch of sugar, a little olive oil and a little tomato purea. And optionally a small clove of chopped or crushed garlic.
7) Cut your dough in half and make two pizza's, otherwise you get a thick bready base that totally ruins the whole experience. Using half the quantity will give you a properly proportioned base, not to thick and not to thin. Just right!
8) Use no more than 4 heaped dessert spoons of tomato sauce on the (large) base. Anymore than this will saturate the pizza and ruin it.
9) Dont overload the pizza with toppings. This is hard, I'm always tempted to cover the top with stuff but it doesnt make for a good pizza. Less is more here.
10) Moazarella holds a lot of moisture and can make the pizza soggy. Either cut it up and microwave it on high for 20 seconds in a dish to remove some of the liquid, or buy the dry stuff in a packet. Its not as nice or authentic but it'll give you less problems while your sorting your bases out.
11) When you cook the pizza make sure the oven is really hot. My bread maker reipe says 220 degrees in the oven for 20 minutes. However I think a hotter oven for a shorter amount of time is better. I use 250 for 10 minutes.
12) Only cook one pizza at a time, cooking two or more at once is a sure way of getting a doughy base. If you need to serve two or three pizzas at the same time, under cook the first two, then cook the third fully - remove it from the oven a put the other two back in for a couple of minutes to finish. All pizzas can then be served at once without deminishing the quality.
13) If you can get some pizza stones to cook them on, I've got three! Aldi sometimes have them in for about a fiver which is the cheapest I've ever seen them. If you plan to make these a lot they are well worth getting.

Thats about all the tips I can think of. Hope some of it helps!

C_Ronaldo

we cook 2 at a time and they are fine

HappyIdiotTalk

Perhaps you have a better oven than us. What tempreture do you use?

C_Ronaldo

200 degress c, yes maybe your right,

BrandNewDay

Cat72 wrote:

Amazon have a pizza stone here at £14.99. It has good reviews maybe someone could confirm if this is the right kind of pizza stone. Not too dear, as the pizza trays can cost a bit.

I just came THISCLOSE to ordering this (as well as something else, so I'd get free shipping) but it says, "usually ships within one to two weeks." That does not make me very happy. I read that as "probably will be on backorder for several months."

You know, because I'm such an optimist.

Bambam

Life's too short to worry about soggy bottoms. Try cheats french bread pizza. Buy a part baked ciabatta, cut through middle, spread with tomato puree, add a combination of your favourite toppings such as ham, pineapple, onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, tuna, bacon, cheese etc., slam in the oven for 10 mins and hey presto french bread (or italian!) pizza. Delicious!

wardrobe

cook your base for 5 mins, then remove from oven then add you sauce and toppings then put back in oven and finish baking.