Quest for the Perfect Pizza
Quest for the Perfect Pizza
I began my quest for the perfect home baked pizza in 1990. After several failed attempts that produced burnt crust or gooey centers, I was certain that I would never be able to produce a great pie at home. Fortunately I was set on the right path towards pizza nirvana. While on vacation in a northern California coast town, my wife and I stumbled onto a quaint little family run pizza joint. The pizza was fantastic with great crust and creative toppings. I asked the owner what the trick was to producing such a masterpiece. He answered with the standard "If I tell you I'll have to kill you". After downing another bottle of wine and sharing with him my challenges in pizza making, He invited me back to his kitchen. "Heat" he explained, "was the key to a successful pie". His oven was fired up over 600 degrees. The type of heat was important too. I left his kitchen with a list of things that I needed to get in order to produce a decent pizza in my own kitchen.
When I returned home I purchased a large, thick, rectangular pizza stone for my oven. I also picked up a good wooden pizza piel along with other specialty tools. It wasn't long until I was turning out great pizza in my own kitchen. Pizza partys became a weekly event. I experimented with several different dough and sauce recipes until I was happy with the results. For years I was content with the pizza that I was able to turn out. Friends and family were happy too. However, my passion was about to lead me down a new path.
Several years ago I had introduced a good friend to the art of pizza making. Like me, he was soon on a quest of his own. Growing up in New York, he wanted to recreate the perfect New York style pie that he remembered as a kid. The pizza that I was creating had a definite California flare with a thicker crust while the pie that my friend was striving for was thin and chewy. Achieving the perfect east coast style pizza was not an easy task. The most common factor in producing such a pie was the oven. Again, the heat was the key. Most authentic pizzerias were using a brick oven that was fired by wood or coal. We found that all of our favorite pizzas from all over the country came from a brick oven. We both decided that we would build a brick oven of our own some day. We researched many different styles and oven designs. We even checked out the oven at Lombardi's, Americas first pizzaeria, while traveling to New York together .
My opportunity to build my oven finally came during the construction of our new home in 2004. I designed my back yard to include an outdoor kitchen, equipped with a comercial size wood fired brick oven. My oven is based on an old world Italian design that is shaped like an igloo. The inside of the oven is approximately six feet deep by four feet wide. I have included a pictorial history of the construction process on this site. I finished the oven with decretive stone, hand distressed wooden tembers, travertine tiles and a copper roof. I couldn't be happier with the results.
This oven gets HOT! Well over a thousand degrees. Pizzas are done in less then three minutes. It's like an old world microwave. The oven is not just for cooking pizza. It produces a moist heat that is perfect for baking artisan breads and roasting juicy meats. I baked the most delectable turkey for Thanksgiving this past year. I also use it as a slow smoker too, producing fantastic ribs and brisket. Yes, it also produces the "perfect home baked pizza"!
I bought a bag of Bob's Red Mill spelt flour a number of weeks ago and let it sit in my cupboard for longer than I should have, mostly because of a lack of confidence but also because I couldn;t decide what kind of bread/roll/muffin I wanted to make with it. I finally decided to try a 50% spelt/wheat flour loaf.
From reading the posts here about spelt I noted that it doesn't require as much kneading as regular AP or bread flour so I decided to use the white flour in a biga, to let it sit for a number of hours to allow it to develop some gluten over time, as in a no knead loaf. Here's the formula:
Bread Flour 8 oz 224 g 50.0%
Water 8 oz 224 g 50.0%
Inst Yeast 1/8 tsn
Spelt Flour 8 oz 224 g 50.0%
Milk 2 oz 56 g 12.5%
Salt 0.32 oz 9 g 2.0%
Honey 1.5 oz 42 g 9.4%
Inst Yeast 0.16 oz 4 g 1.0%
Butter 0.24 oz 7 g 1.5%
Makes one 1 lb. loaf
BIGA
Mix the bread flour, water and 1/8 tsp instant yeast together. Allow to ferment at room temperature for about 8 hours, or for about 4 hours then refrigerating overnight. Let sit at room temp for at least an hour after removing it from the fridge before mixing the dough.
DOUGH
Put the biga into a 4 qt bowl and add the milk, honey, yeast salt and butter. Mix together, then add the spelt flour. Knead for about 5 to 6 minutes or until the spelt is fully incorporated and the dough is soft and pliable.
Let the dough ferment for about 90 minutes or until it's doubled. Shape into a loaf into a boule or btard and cover with an oiled piece of plastic wrap. Retard overnight in the refrigerator.
The next morning, remove the loaf from the fridge at least an hour before baking it. Prepare the oven for hearth baking and preheat 450F. Score the loaf just before sliding it into the oven.
Bake for 5 minutes, spraying the oven walls with water at roughly 1 to 2 minute intervals, then drop the oven temperature to 350F and bake for another ten minutes. Rotate the loaf and bake for another 15 minutes of so, or until the crust is a golden brown.
Here's what it looked like (I had to rush to get the pic before it was all gone). Not the prettiest crumb but the flavor was exceptional!
Hey guys,
I have just finished my first successful bake with a rye starter that I created, temps are low here in Canada and it took about 2 weeks for it to be active enough. The problem I am having is that in the 2 days since this bake I have been trying to get a white starter going with this active rye starter with no success.
I basically took 1 TBL spoon of the rye starter and mixed it with 1/3 flour and 1/4 water. (same as I did for my rye starter) but after 2 days I am getting no action out of this thing. I used an ubleached bread flour, and an unbleached AP flour. Neither has started rising. Is this normal? Or is there something in these flours that is stopping the activity? The only thing I can think of is that my kitchen is just a bit to cold for the white flour but was just warm enough for the rye flour. Could this be the problem?
Thoughts? Advice?
-D
I am new to this website and forum....and also new to making sourdough bread. I am attempting to create my own starter using Peter Reinhart's pineapple juice recipe from his " The Bread Bakers Apprentice". I have followed the recipe to a "T" using weight rather than volume for the ingredients. I am currently in day 5 of the process and the starter has lots of bubbles on top and the smell is sort of sour. There are no foul smells coming from the starter. My problem is the starter has not risen. I have had bubbles for three days, but it refuses to rise. The ambient room tempeture over the last five days has been 68-70 degrees. I have kept the starter in a glass jar on the counter and have been replacing ingredients every 24 hours according to the recipe. I think the starter is still alive???? Can anyone help with some tips, suggestions , etc that would help it rise and form a good starter? Any help would be appreciated!
My question is what process do the Great Pizza Places like Pepe's Sally's and the other great pizza places use for mixing their dough. Anyone have a quess as to wether or not they use a sourdough culture or make dough fresh and cold rise, do they mix until a window pane develops?
I don't know what to call this, but this is what I'm making today as a result of being scolded re: fiber. This is after the first kneading, just because I thought it looked kind of cool...
This is:
300 gm flour, consisting of about 120 gm KABF, 100 gm KAWWF, and the rest of the solids were 2 tbl flax seed and a handful of trail mix ground to a powder in the blender: walnut, almond, soybean, pepitas. And a little spelt flour, about 2 tbl. I added 8 gm rapid yeast and 8 gm salt. I used about 210 gm water (started with 198 but it seemed too dry). It kneaded better than I expected and got a little bit stretchy. Time will tell, but the ball looked so grain-ful & healthy I wanted to share :-) Hmm...looking at what I just wrote, I oversalted :-( I plan to give this a 4 hour rise...here's hoping!
\
RSS
