Pizza at home; the bad, good and ugly

I got a 1kg bag of Tipo 00 flour and decided to make pizza. It turned out to be quite an adventure:

First, the proportions water/ flour on the Caputo (manufacturer) web site were all wrong. I had to add another cup of flour to make it work. That made it impossible to work in the mixer so I moved it to the food processor. The dough was too heavy and the motor of the food processor burnt and died, I finished kneading by hand.

The dough after two hours was the best I ever worked with - soft and easy to manipulate and stretch. I made two pies - one margherita and one with caramelized onions, duck confit and white cheddar.

I wanted to generate enough heat and my oven although very good cannot match the grill. So I used my gas grill, a five year old Weber Genesis. I put a pizza stone on top of an upside down cast iron pan, and placed the pizza on top.

The pizzas came out great but my grill (and it's a problem with most Weber gas grills if I understand correctly) has a layer of black carbon on the inside of the lid. The result is that the pizza was black at the edges, it tasted great, though, but did have a bit of an aftertaste.

First, the proportions water/ flour on the Caputo (manufacturer) web site were all wrong. I had to add another cup of flour to make it work. That made it impossible to work in the mixer so I moved it to the food processor.

What were the proportions suggested? I usually use a 3:1 ratio of flour to water. For one pizza for dinner I'll use 1.5 cups flour and 1/2 cup water. I've never had a problem with it being difficult to handle either by hand or in a mixer.

white cheddar

I like using different ingredients and cheeses but even that one is new/sounds strange to me as a pizza topping!

Glad you enjoyed the final result.

What were the proportions suggested? I usually use a 3:1 ratio of flour to water. For one pizza for dinner I'll use 1.5 cups flour and 1/2 cup water. I've never had a problem with it being difficult to handle either by hand or in a mixer.

The suggestion was 500gr flour to 325 gr of water. I usually use 2.75:1 and add whatever is missing, I am sure there was a mistake because the proportions were all wrong .

White cheddar worked well. I was thinking of a cheese to go with duck confit and caramelized onions and thought comte at first (onions + comte would be like a French onion soup) or monterey jack to go with duck, but then settled on white cheddar. I was pleasantly surprised. The combination worked very well.

The suggestion was 500gr flour to 325 gr of water.

That does sound tough! Literally.

White cheddar worked well...monterey jack to go with duck...

For someone with a French name you use some mighty American-style cheeses!

I should add that I'm not a 'purist' about these things and use all kinds of cheeses myself on pizza. Many of which are not even from Italy. But, they tend to in the family of things from Italy (i.e. Bleu d'Auvergne instead of Gorgonzola) so it all seems to fit. Except for feta. Not sure if that shows up on pizza in Italy but I find it very delicious.

Maybe my surprise with cheddar and monterey jack is because I'm not a huge fan of them in general.

But, anyway, nice to hear about different ideas!

Hey, I have too much respect for French cheeses to put them on a pizza . Just half kidding actually, I was trying to imagine a Crottin de Chavignol or a Reblochon or Tomme de Savoie on a pizza, and it doesn't sound too appetizing.

Another pizza that I made yesterday with the leftover dough was pesto (instead of tomato sauce) with mozzarella. That one was the best of the bunch!

Here is the link for the instructions, it is not from Caputo, but from one of the resellers, I guess. I should have gone with the cup measures as opposed to weight. As the French say :" Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" (roughly translated - The best is the enemy of the good or in other words: don't try to improve on a working formula)

http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza/pizza_dough.html

Hey, I have too much respect for French cheeses to put them on a pizza . Just half kidding actually, I was trying to imagine a Crottin de Chavignol or a Reblochon or Tomme de Savoie on a pizza, and it doesn't sound too appetizing.

Bleu d'Auvergne is probably the French cheese I most often use for pizza. I have also used French versions of feta. My main 'international' strike outside Italy is to use various hard sheep's milk cheeses from Spain, something I do relatively often.

The suggestion was 500gr flour to 325 gr of water.

That does sound tough! Literally.

Following this thread, I have a suspicion that there's been some confusion in the translation from metric to British or between masses and volumes but I'm not sure. Translating these numbers into British volume measures, at around 125 g per cup, this is about 4 cups of flour. 325 g of water is 1.43 cups. So by volume, this recipe is a 2.8:1 ratio, so not that far off your 3:1. I myself go a little wetter at around 2.4:1 but then add some flour during kneading, so may not end up that different. This recipe should have been fine, so I'm not sure what went wrong.

Following this thread, I have a suspicion that there's been some confusion in the translation from metric to British or between masses and volumes but I'm not sure. Translating these numbers into British volume measures, at around 125 g per cup, this is about 4 cups of flour. 325 g of water is 1.43 cups. So by volume, this recipe is a 2.8:1 ratio, so not that far off your 3:1. I myself go a little wetter at around 2.4:1 but then add some flour during kneading, so may not end up that different. This recipe should have been fine, so I'm not sure what went wrong.

Mark, the 500g of flour weren't even close to 4 cups. Maybe my scale is off. All I know is I will go by volume from now on.

About twenty years ago I learned from a Russian pizza master in Brighton Beach (Brooklyn, New York) how to roll out the pizza and then how to spin it on one arm, toss it up in the air, catch it on the way back and thus have it stretch out to its ultimate thin-ness. The only problem with that was that his ceiling was about 6 meters high (about 18 feet) and my own is about 4 meters (12 feet) and every time I try to do it the damned pizza dough winds up sticking to the ceiling!

I also learned at about the same time from Barry the Barman (the Israeli barman who was paid several hundred thousand dollars to teach Tom Cruise how to do it for his film) how to toss two bottles into the air simultaneously and then to catch them, facing neck down, without having spilled a drop, to pour into the glass or shaker. Again, no fear - today when I try it at least one of the bottles lands either on my head or on the floor. Terrible mess!!!!

Best
Rogov

Mark, the 500g of flour weren't even close to 4 cups. Maybe my scale is off. All I know is I will go by volume from now on.

Jacques, I wish recipes would go the other way. American recipes are as a rule based on volume; European ones very often use weight (or mass, if you want to be picky). I find weight a much more reliable way to go, otherwise you have problems with things like just how packed your flour is. As a purely practical matter, adding ingredients using a scale with a "tare" function also can mean less clean up since you can use fewer measuring cups. I'd prefer every recipe to specify weights. All of that assumes a scale that works, of course!

Mark, the 500g of flour weren't even close to 4 cups. Maybe my scale is off. All I know is I will go by volume from now on.

Jacques, I wish recipes would go the other way. American recipes are as a rule based on volume; European ones very often use weight (or mass, if you want to be picky). I find weight a much more reliable way to go, otherwise you have problems with things like just how packed your flour is. As a purely practical matter, adding ingredients using a scale with a "tare" function also can mean less clean up since you can use fewer measuring cups. I'd prefer every recipe to specify weights. All of that assumes a scale that works, of course!

Professional bakers weigh everything.

I know, I know, Weight - YES Volume - NO. I have been reading and hearing this for years.

But I am not a baker, I am not even a chef, I am an amateur cook who likes to occasionally bake, and I don't even own a good scale apparently. All I know is that measuring by cup worked for years and when I moved to weights, I screwed up. Not trying to put anyone down, what works for me is obviously not perfect, but I am wondering what other amateurs think here.