Make your own pizza - the Holy Grail? (1 Viewer)

[Dennis Nicholls]

Interest in another thread led me to start this one....

"When I first moved here, when I wanted pizza I picked up the phone and had one delivered.

Then to save money I picked up the bake-yourself ones from Costco.

Later on to save money I picked up the bake-yourself ones from WinCo.

Then still later on to save money I started getting the pre-mix dough from WinCo and made my own.

This month I'm at the bottom of the barrel: I got some bread flour and yeast and now make my pizzas from scratch. I think I'm down to about $0.80 for a medium sized pizza now. basic pizza dough recipe Hint: pre-sliced black olives are much more expensive than whole pitted black olives. Get a can of large whole black olives and slice them to order with an egg-slicer - which also can be used to slice the mushrooms.

Am I cheap or what?"

Does anyone want to chime in and give some advice on making pizza from scratch?

 

[Lew Crippen]

Yes—don’t cheapen up on the mozzarella or Parmesan. Even here I can get real Parmesan and (sometimes) whole milk, buffalo mozzarella.

But you can even out the cost of the cheese by making your own tomato sauce.

 

[RickER]

How did i know you would make a thread about this! LOL

Ditto on the cheese, it MAKES the pizza.

 

[DavidJ]

Well, I'd disagree as I think the sauce and the bread are the most crucial elements. Then again, I don't like cheese.

Although I have heard this before from various "experts."

I need to experiment with making my own dough. I haven't done that yet and I think I'd enjoy it as long as it is not too complicated or time consuming.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Three posts and not one referance to Kramer and his idea about a pizzaria where you make your own pie?

 

[gene c]

His money making ideas lost all credibility after he threw that ball of oil out the window! But the Coffee Table book (and The Ocean perfume) were actually good idea's. As for going into a pizza parlor and making your own pie, I wouldn't have tried it. More than likely I would have gotten my "tie dispencer" caught in the oven door.

As for making my own pizza at home, I only do it once or twice a year and I use the very best pepperoni, cheese, sauce, etc that money can buy. As I said, it's only once or twice a year. And I use Boboli Pizza Bread. Trust me, it's better than anything I could ever make from scratch.

 

[Jassen M. West]

Mix muenster with mozzarella in equal parts, I like to use 2/3rds muenster and 1/3 mozz for more flavor. Also, after you spread the sauce out sprinkle some oregano followed buy a light layer of parmesan then add the cheese mix.

 

[Bryan X]

We'll make home-made pizza a few times a year. We should do it more often though as I love the taste of it. We always use one of those pizza-kits in a box for the sauce and dough and then add our own cheese and toppings.

We use Appian Way pizza mix and it is really tastey, IMO. The picture on the box doesn't look very good, but it turns out looking and tasting very good.

 

[BrianW]

For pizza on the go, I mix equal parts Bisquick (or other self-rising flour mix) and shredded Mozzarella cheese. For every two cups of Bisquick used, add six ounces of pizza sauce. Add ingredients to taste (I like olives and pepperoni), but make sure the ingredients are minced -- no large pepperoni slices allowed.

Mix in a large bowl and spoon out onto a cookie sheet in two-tablespoon sized balls. Bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes, or until "golden-orange".

You just made Pizza Turds!

Eat fresh out of the oven, or refrigerate/freeze after baking. Grab a handful every day to put in your bag lunch and eat them cold, or microwave them if you have the facilities at work.

They're not awesome, but they're pretty good, extremely convenient, and you can make a ton of them in one shot for a bunch of people (kids) or for lunch appetizers for weeks at a time.

 

[DaveF]

I never thought of making your pizza as a being "cheap" -- it's just cooking.

Dough recipes I've used make enough for two pizzas. You can make one pizza and freeze the other half of the dough for later use. Unless you're me and forget about it and a year later your wife is getting on your case about the frozen pizza dough you're going to cook any day now.

 

[Matt Fig]

I never thought of making your pizza as cheap either. We use our bread machine to make our pizza crust. It does a lot of the hard work for us. We just add the contents and it stirs, kneads and rises. Sometimes we will add some other ingredients (herbs, cheeses, spices, whatever you like to experiment with) to the crust while it is mixing. Also we make different types of crust:wheat, multi-grain, herb flavored, cheese flavored. Sometimes they turn out good other times not so good. The one thing we learned is try not to buy sauce in a can. Sometimes you can get that "tinny" taste and that will ruin the pizza (for us it did).

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

There are still some unresolved mysteries to me.

How much heat? Right now I've tried 425 deg., 450 deg., and 475 deg. It would appear pizza cooks best with a higher temperature and shorter exposure times. How does this work in the case of thick crust vs. thin crust?

How much wheat? Right now I'm using Gold Medal Better for Bread flour, which contains winter wheat flour and malted barley flour. Is this optimal? Some here have said they use that "self rising" flour - isn't that the stuff that contains baking powder? To me a crust is like bread and should be yeasty.

 

[DaveF]

Oh yeah, if stuff isn't falling off and scorching on the bottom of the oven, you need more toppings!

 

[RobertR]

I have the same questions. I've tried making homemade pizza, and it never tastes as good as pizzeria pizza. I've read that this is partly due to the difference between home ovens and commercial pizza ovens, which I understand reach very high temperatures.

 

[Scooter]

I asked a couple of pizza guys about this and they said 550 degrees. Also...I found having a pizza stone is very helpful.

 

[Richard Travale]

Bryan, that pizza kit box looks like it's from the early eighties. Time to clear out your pantry I think

 

[Bryan X]

That pizza mix has been around since the 70's. I don't think they've changed the look of the box over the years much if any. But it is delicious!

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

David, click the link in the first post and it shows a full set of photos showing the entire process.

I bought a 1 lb package of Red Star Active Dry Yeast today for $2.79. Those 3-strip packs of yeast cost $1 and each pouch only contains 1/4 oz. Getting the yeast in bulk is a heck of a savings if I can make it work down to the bottom of the package. In the recipe at top, that's only 1.45 cents per pizza.

I'm getting the cost down!

 

[Kevin Hewell]

Didn't Alton Brown use unglazed tiles instead of a pizza stone on one of his eps?

 

[Greg_S_H]

I usually don't like "homemade" pizza (at least, when I make it) like Robert said, but I've also tried the Boboli like gene said and found it to be surprisingly good. In quotations, because besides the Boboli, I just used some premade sauce with a bag of cheese and some pepperonis.