There is still broad agreement that three or four toppings is optimal. These should be thinly sliced, in part to ensure they cook thoroughly. Delicate items should be layered under cheese or oiled for protection (undressed kale will easily turn to blackened ash); those you want to crisp up should be placed on top.
Something I never thought I would hear.
Martha White pizza crust mix
All you really need is a good tomato pizza sauce, cheese, olive oil, and maybe a little garlic.
Oven at 400 F for 10-15 minutes and add the chopped basil once you pull it out. Crust gets nice and crispy, pair with some Marrano Vignalta (eyetalian cab) and proceed to burn roof of mouth.
This article is a perfect example of ‘go far enough in one direction and you wind up back where you were’.
Pizza, when it began rising in popularity in the 40s and 50s, was a specific particular thing by definition. To sell it you had to figure out the craft of making it.
Fast forward to the late 70s early 80s and pizza parlor saturation everywhere and...now it’s a business and in stiff competition with other businesses. This drove the decline in the craft of making pizza. Lowering the temp of the ovens considerably. Dumbing down the flour to a cheaper less glutinous variety. Getting rid of the sourdough starter. No more semolina in the ovens. And, some argue moving away from he and kneading for a specific length of time. Don’t get me started on the cheese. It turned to plastic. The sauce is the only improvement over that time span. The fact of the matter is EVERY pizza parlor pizza was a 48 hour fermented sourdough pizza.
The difference just temperature alone makes is profound. Last holiday season we ordered a pizza on Thanksgiving eve. Being a monster volume night the cooks were forced to raise the temp of the ovens to maintain a decent operating temp. To raise the temp of these ovens it has to be done well in advance as the process takes hours to get to the specified temp. I took one bite and could taste the difference. Judging by the char they still were a good ways off the average 1968 oven temp but the magnitude of difference in smell and taste amazed me.
Now people are investigating the craft of making pizza because a hell of a lot of pizza parlor pizza isn’t anything special.
BAKING IS CHEMISTRY! It’s as simple as that.
All of the above applies to bagels and soft pretzels as well.
930 degrees Fahrenheit?
The original title of my first book (unpublished, still) was The Hamburger & Pizza ‘diet’.
I literally lost 55 pounds eating hamburgers for lunch, single serving pizzas for dinner and my regular breakfast of 2ea eggs/toast and a banana, upending so-called ‘expert’ advice on the matter and, as I assert, turning conventional dietary knowledge on its head.
Someday in the coming year I’ll either buy a Tig or find someone to do the welding necessary to complete what is arguably a 4th-gen prototype: Combination smoker, grill & pizza oven (my 2nd gen mod achieved temperatures of >750 deg F, melting the knobs off my gas controls).
Hint: It’s NOT the burners which determine BTUs. You CAN unleash potential from your grill at home, with minor modifications.
Dough was made in a batch and divided into 6 rounds, individually frozen. Dough was removed from the freezer the night before, placed in the fridge. Upon return from work, dough was removed from the fridge to achieve room temperature, then hand-worked into whatever shape resulted. Sauce was simple: Tomato puree, light oregano, garlic, olive oil, cayenne and salt (uncooked). Toppings varied.
Single serving pizza prepared in 15 minutes while the grill came to temp, cooked to completion in under 4 minutes. I’d post a pic, but they’re on my other laptop (awaiting time set aside to repair).
I also perfected an oven-baked white sauce pizza: Garlic cream sauce with fast-smoked/grilled dark meat chicken and onions on a whole wheat/basil thick crust.
IMHO, when it comes to homemade pizza, the key is to be unconventional and adapt to the tools you have, or acquire the tools you need (including a quality pizza stone and pizza peel).
In my case, I modified my gas grill (HEAVILY modified). Someday it will be finished and I’ll share here.
And, like BBQ, your mistakes will help you achieve the greatest personal success.
I think that, upon exposure to such superheated temperatures, the pizza would simply flash into ash.
Corn kernels on pizza in Ireland and a sunny side up egg on pizza in France, I’ll stick with parma ham, fresh basil, and mozzarella di bufala on mine thanks.
We buy a cheap frozen pizza and then load it up with the stuff we like!!!
I make homemade pizza. I heat up the oven with a pizza stone as hot as my oven goes (about 600°F), while I hand mix the dough and let it rise for an hour. Apply garlic olive oil to the crust, followed by homemade sauce, parmesan cheese, small amount of parcooked minced onion and green pepper, cooked Italian sausage, pepperoni, then topped with lots of mozzarella. Cooks in 8 minutes. The sauce is the key. Lousy sauce, lousy pizza.