The Pizza Therapy Forum and Pasta Therapy Forum

[dawng]

Hi folks. I am so glad that I have come across this website. This brilliant idea entered my mind a few weeks ago that I wanted to make pizza. We don't have any pizza places in my city that make anything even edible. I am not joking - when visitors come to town, or people move here they can't believe it.

Anyway.... I went to my usual recipe haunt - allrecipes.com to find a dough recipe. I chose "Jay's" as hundreds of people had used it and everyone raved even those that were first time pizza makers. So..I made by first pizza using this recipe, and despite being a touch dry it was the best crust I have ever had. Yee-haw! Round 2: disaster. Same recipe, same everything. Round 3: Same again. The last 2 times the crust was soggy/doughy in the middle. Blah. The 3rd time I did knead a little longer, the dough was a little stickier, but results were the same as #2, except I have a heck of a time rolling it as is springs back like crazy.

Plan B: I read everything I can find on the web. I order American Pie. I read immediately (love the Hunt). Great read! I feel an obsession coming on but it is in my imagination as I am a "dough ditz". Today, I made the Neo-neopolitan dough from this book. Right now I have four balls in the fridge (actually 2 in the freezer). I wish I could see someone prepare dough or at least see in real life what it should look like. The balls don't look as smooth as I think they probably should. I followed the directions as best I could, but with the limitation of not knowing how the dough should end up.

So... I am feeling discouraged. Are them some people that just can't get it or is there hope for me?

Perhaps I need to cook one or two of these up tomorrow and post back my results. (though I am having a bad feeling about this).



Dawn

[Thick Crust]

Practice practice practice! I've had bad days but now I know what my results are going to be based on experience. Are you using a pizza stone? Doing an overnight rise in the fridge? Oven temp? Maybe you could post your dough recipe for us.

Good luck Dawn!
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Legends of Pizza!

[Mike Devine]

Experiment with a little more yeast, it's cold in Canada, maybe your room temp. is holding fermentation back.

Mike
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Mike Devine

[tgnytg]

I suggest taking a look at this video:

http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/pages/cvt033.asp

This video makes it pretty easy to shape a dough ball into a pizza.

Go easy, be patient, let the dough rest if it resists. And practice, practice, practice. Make extra dough just so you can practice with it.

If you are measuring ingredients by volume, try using a scale and measure ingredients to the nearest gram. I found that the quality of my pizza crusts (and bread) improved dramatically when I started using a scale. I was able to turn out consistent dough every time.

When you say that your pizza "was soggy/doughy in the middle" means to me that your pizza was properly cooked around the outside, but the center was still unrisen and seemed not to have baked. Is this the case?

Are you using a baking stone or pizza screens? If not, the dough may not have enough space to evaporate moisture from the bottom when it is baking.

I would guess that the dough was either uneven (too thin in the middle) when spread out, or your sauce or toppings were put on too thick. Try a little less liquid next time.

If this doesn't help, try posting again with more descriptive information, like dough recipe, baking stone or not, oven temp, etc. It is hard to troubleshoot without a lot of specific detail.

Tom