I’ve been doing this for a while, but it’s a problem I’ve never solved. Dunno if it’s my crust recipe or something I need to do during construction.
The recipe is as follows:
- 1c water, 120°F
- 1 packet dry active yeast (2.25tsp)
- 1Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2Tbsp olive oil
- 3.5C white flour
- 1tsp salt
- Mix the yeast and sugar in the warm water, wait to bloom
- Add everything else and mix into dough.
- Knead, proof
- Roll out, transfer to pan
- Second proof (optional)
- Preheat oven to 425°F
- Construct pizza with favorite toppings
- Bake at 425°F for 15min or until cheese is sufficiently browned
Step 7 usually has jarred marinara, meats (except pepperoni), spices, and cheese, and all the veggies (and pepperoni) go on top.
Still, the very middle part of the pizza ends up a little doughy, just where the sauce meets the crust. The outside of the pizza is just fine, but the only thing I can think is that the sauce is adding too much water. Do I need to add a layer of oil before the sauce, or should I try to reduce the sauce before adding it? Should I reduce the temp and increase the time?
Thanks!
Edit: Everyone has had some great ideas. I’ll have plenty to try!
Lots of good advice in this thread, here’s one more that I discovered: spread the sauce thinner in the center of the pie. As the pie cooks the fluids will often pool in the center, so intentionally leaving the middle dry-ish can help compensate for that. I like my pizza really saucy, but I’ll leave the center barely wet with sauce, and that’s fine because it’s only the first couple bites of the slice anyway.
Also just mind the fluids you top the pizza with. If you’re doing pepperoni, then you really don’t need olive oil on top of that.
425 is a little low. Pizza is all about heat, I pre-bake my crust for 7 at 450 to firm crust, then add sauce, cheese and toppings. Like many others said, a pizza stone is a huge help.
The olive oil might be causing it to become too doughy. You don’t need it (or the sugar). Both are for taste and texture. You’ll likely need to fiddle with the water if you lose the oil.
I’d also recommend measuring by weight and not volume. It’s more accurate. Buy yourself some cheap kitchen scales.
A lot of people have mentioned getting a pizza stone or steel and cooking at higher temps, and they’re 100% right.
I just want to add that steel is definitely the way to go if it’s in the budget - specifically, steel has more thermal mass and conducts heat better than stone.
Crust crispness is entirely a function of how much heat you’re able to supply to the surface, and when baking in a standard oven (max ~500F) instead of a pizza oven (700+ F), you need all the help you can get - which means steel, preferably at least 1/4" thick.
Sticking with the tools you have, you can try preheating your pan, like you would a stone/steel, before putting the topped pizza on it.
Thanks for the advice! I had a stone once, but it cracked (from heat), and I just never replaced it. A pizza steel is something new I’d never heard of until people mentioned it in the comments, so I’ll have to look into that.
I have a double-layered, perforated pan that’s maybe 16ga altogether, but I can try preheating that.
For sure look into the pizza steel.
Stones often crack not because of heat specifically, but because of moisture.
They should really only ever be exposed to moisture once fully heated, and allowed a little extra time after the pizza bakes to dry out before turning the oven off.
A pizza steel will be more resilient, though it can rust if washed regularly without seasoning (just like a cast iron / carbon steel pan)
A big oven safe pan is a good start, the heavier the better.
I’ve never eaten good pizza out of a household oven, so I’ve bought an electric pizza oven for 200 Eur.
By weight I use 60% of water compared to the flour (i. e. 500g of high protein pizza flour to 300g of water), 7g of salt and a very low amount of dry yeast. Overnight proofing in the fridge, next day I ball the dough (around 270g per pizza) and let it proof at room temp for a few hours.
Baking 3 minutes at 400°C (740F)
The investment for the oven has well paid off, as I don’t order any pizza to my home, anymore. You can freeze dough balls or use more yeast for “same day dough”.
Edit: Ah what nobody mentioned in the other comments (I think): The choice of flour makes a huuuuuge difference. Use pizza flour or at least a high protein flour (which has at least 12% of protein)
You could get pretty good results with a pizza steel. Crank the oven to max and preheat the steel for about an hour. Then you get 2 pizzas with leoparding on the bortom. After that the heat in the steel is gone and they do not turn out so great anymore.
Also depends a lot on the oven. Incidentially today I bought a (used) new one (after I found it in local listings for 50 Eur - and sold off my old one for 30 Eur).
The old one goes to 260C, the new one gets to 300C. No way to make decent pizza in the old one (I tried) , but with the new one and a steel I’d have a chance.
The choice of flour makes a huuuuuge difference. Use pizza flour or at least a high protein flour (which has at least 12% of protein)
I’m with you, here. I sometimes do a 1:3 whole wheat to white all-purpose flour. However, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of pizza flour or high protein flour (that isn’t terrible for baking bread, anyway). What kind/brand do you use? I might be able to find an equivalent.
And thanks for sharing the weights you use. My recipe is a family one, and I should probably take some time to convert mine. Might help me find where extra water is coming from.
I’m German so I have good access to Italian flour, for Pizza I use Caputo Pizzeria (for which I pay Eur 2.50 per kg). I order a few packages online.
Typical supermarket flour here has a lower protein content - so it can hold less water.
The Caputo is about 3 times the price of supermarket flour, but 1kg of flour is 6 (round) pizzas, so the difference is a few cent per pizza.
Check youtube for good information - damn, I forget the name of the channel, it’s a married couple showing Italian cuisine , he’s American she’s Italian. They have a video how they make the rectangular pizza in the household oven.
This is crazy, chatgpt just found what I was looking for from roughly the above description:
https://www.pastagrammar.com/post/authentic-italian-pan-pizza-in-teglia-recipe
A pizza stone.
A stone or steel and higher temperature+less time will help immensely. Even a preheated cast iron pan would help. (Look at specific cast iron pizza instructions, I haven’t made any)
I tend to do 500f for 6-7 minutes on a baking steel and even heavier toppings are good.
Also: what toppings? Uncooked mushrooms and pineapple are super wet, cooking them beforehand is important.
I am sure the serious foodies will downvote this comment but I precook the crust to prevent this. Roll out the dough and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 then remove. Then just finish the pizza as you normally would.
I’m something of foodie and I agree with this. Also use less sauce, spread the sauce thinner, or find a sauce that has less water in it. It’s the unevaporated liquid in the sauce that insulates the dough on top and keeps that surface from baking properly, making it mushy. Par-baking the crust starts that baking process before you put the ingredients on and helps to avoid this.
Lots of thickly cut toppings with liquid in them such as tomatoes or improperly dried fresh mozzarella can also prevent the crust from baking properly so par-bake and then add the ingredients before finishing the baking to help with this. Good pizza takes work but you’re on your way to it.
Some people also mentioned mushrooms as a source of moisture, and I put fresh ones in the sauce layer (I forgot that exception). I never really thought of them as particularly “wet.”
But perhaps doing a par-baking step is warranted. You do it for pies, and what is a pizza, if not a pie?
I like thicker crispy crusts and heavily sauced. I’ve pre-cooked my dough before adding sauce and toppings for decades.
Sounds like a winning combination to me. Thick crust is what my SO and I like, and we judge takeout pizza on the crust quality 😆
