make at home to serve at a friend's house?

[dmaxdmax]

Every 6 weeks or so my family gets together with another for pizza.  We can't do it at our house because of pet allergies so I can't show off my goods and we're left with admittedly pretty good takeout.  I can't invite myself 3 hours ahead with dough balls so how can I make it here for eating there?  I don't want to fool with bringing room-temp balls and stretching them on-site since it's just too much work and will interfere with hanging-out time.

They have a std electric oven w/a pizza stone.  Solutions I've dreamed up include:

Prebake plain skins just enough to set.  Dress and finish baking on-site.

Partially bake dressed pies here and finish on-site.

Bake here and reheat on-site.

Thank you!
Dave

[Pete-zza]

Dave,

Those are all possibilities. Another is to make a take-and-bake version of your pizzas and bake them at the final destination.

Peter

[Tscarborough]

I am working along these lines myself.  My current plan is to form the skin from my normal cold dough, freeze it, apply very cold sauce, then cold toppings, and freeze it quickly.  I will then cook it at destination.

[Pete-zza]

I am working along these lines myself.  My current plan is to form the skin from my normal cold dough, freeze it, apply very cold sauce, then cold toppings, and freeze it quickly.  I will then cook it at destination.

Tom,

What you are proposing to do is discussed in the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3997.msg33378.html#msg33378. I haven't done much with freezing entire pizzas so I don't have a good feel for the probable results. I do remember, however, trying to bake a frozen unbaked pizza that I had made directly on an oven rack. As the pizza started to bake, the dough drooped into the openings of the oven rack. That ended that experiment.

Peter

[Tscarborough]

I would do it on a pan for at least half the bake, but par-baking may help as well.

[dmaxdmax]

Pete-zza - I'd love to do a take-and-bake version but I've never tried one and I'm not going to make this a test run.

My current plan is to assemble and bake Friday afternoon for reheating at their place.  Reinhart's NYStyle recipe says for extra "snap" you can let the pizza cool completely and reheat for 2 minutes just before serving.  I've done this for 45 minutes but I doubt that 2-3 hours would be much different.  I don't imagine it would go bad in that time and I can't decide if I'd rather hear horror stories about this or not.  Ignorance is bliss or in the case of endangering others I'd like to maintain plausible deniability.

Dave

[Pete-zza]

Dave,

One of the good things about the Reinhart NY style dough is that it contains a fair amount of oil and sugar. Those ingredients should keep the crumb moist and slow down the staling process. In those respects, the Reinhart dough is like an American style dough, like a Papa John's dough. The slices of a Papa John's pizza reheat nicely, without drying out excessively.

Peter

[Tscarborough]

When I reheat my leftovers, it is almost as though from fresh, BUT I only reheat in the WFO or kitchen oven at around 350-400 or use a 1400 degree heatgun, so your experience may differ  (and I reheat directly on the racks in the oven and on the floor in the WFO).

[dmaxdmax]

I've never been too happy with my stuff after a night in the fridge.  I don't know if it's the process of going from hot to cold to hot that's the killer or if it has more to do with the age.  Probably some of both.  If I get particularly great or rotten results I'll report back.

[norma427]

dmaxdmax,

I also experimented with making a Take and Bake pizza a few times, but didn’t use the same formula as you are using.  If you are interested in seeing what happened with my take and bakes there is one at Reply 344 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg93320.html#msg93320 and another at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg93959.html#msg93959
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg94037.html#msg94037 and here is where I did a parbake for a take and bake at Reply 392 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg95103.html#msg95103

I got some good results with the last Take and Bake, but couldn’t get the sauce to taste the same when reheating the pizza. The pizza itself still tasted good.

Best of luck to you in trying a Take and Bake.  I will be looking forward to your results.

Norma