Hi all,
First a big thanks to all who post here to help us newbie with our pizza baking attempts. Special thanks to Pete-zza for all of his wonderful hints and especially the Kitchen Aid mixer post.
I made my first pizza tonight using information that I got from this forum. I make New York style using the Lehmaan's dough recipe in a KA mixer while following Pete-zza's instructions. I used KA bread flour, oil, and salt. I made four dough balls on Thursday night and used them tonight (Sunday). I didn't do a good job pinching the bottom when I balled them and I need a scale to read in .1 grams or find the volume measurements for the small amount of yeast. I took the dough balls out 4 hours prior to use to warm to room temp. I had trouble getting a round circle as you can see from the pics. The dough was a little elastic and wanted to pull back some, but it wasn't too bad. I was actually able to pick it up and not toss it, but stretch it some with my fists, but I had better luck just holding one edge and letting its weight stretch it. I did achieve window panes.
The first one was with my homemade sauce of San Maranzo tomatoes, and a pizza seasoning blend that I found in the wife spice rack. I was planning to just use oregano, but we were out of it. I should have checked, but the the whole family liked the sauce. I also used a little salt and a pinch of sugar to taste. I used 20 slices of everyday Hormel pepperoni, 6 ounces of low moisture mozzarella cheese that I shredded with a salad shooter (I couldn't find whole milk mozzarella), and two ounces of shredded provolone cheese. It was perfect in shape but the taste was great!
The second one was made using canned (wait for it) chef boy-r-dee sauce, 20 slices of pepperoni, the same amount and kind of cheese and 4 ounces of hot Italian sausage. It was good, but not as good as the first one. The sausage was kind of greasy.
The third one was back to my own sauce, same cheese, and 24 slices of pepperoni.
The fourth one was my sauce, same cheese, and 4 ounces of sausage.
I cooked these in an electric oven @ 550 degrees (preheated for an hour) on a 14X16 cordierite stone. The stone was 580 degrees when I put the first pie on it. I opened my dough on a wooden cutting board dusted with a 50-50 mixture of bread flour and semolina four, then transferred the skin to a 12 dusted pizza peel, added the ingredients, and transferred the pie to the stone. I had no problems in this area at all.
I was apprehensive about this part and I have read a lot of horror stories about the pie sticking to the peel, but they all slid right off as planned. I cooked the first one for 6 minutes. The rest of them each took a little longer, with the last one taking 7.5 minutes. I assume that my oven temp was dropping due to opening the door to put in and take out the pies. Over all this was a great experience and the pies tasted wonderful. The teenager ( 15 year old male) wants a better quality pepperoni. My wife and I were taken back to when we lived in New Jersey, and the 4 year old boy just eats pizza of all kinds! I had good oven spring, the crust was crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. We can't buy pizza this good where we live, so this is fantastic.
I need to make some more dough balls, so I can practice opening them up in a better circle.
I will attempt to add the photos now. Thanks for reading.
