Quick question about baking multiple deep dish pizzas at once

[Prufrock]

Greetings deep dish forum.

I've carelessly over-invited a bunch of people over to my place tonight for delicious deep dish pizza.  I have ample amounts of dough (mmm, DKM deep dish dough), but am wondering if I'll be able to bake more than one pizza at a time.

In the past I've used my 14 x 2'' Magic Line metal cake pans (shiny, not black) on a baking stone on the bottom rack with good results.  I have two such pans and a small, cheap backup pizza stone, as well as a 12 x 2" cast iron skillet at my disposal.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[vcb]

I've done this a bunch of times. I've made up to 4 pizzas in one night.

I have a pizza stone which I keep on the bottom rack of the oven at all times.
I preheat the oven to 500F, then knock it down to 450-475 before i put the pizzas in.
I put the top rack just above the bottom rack so there's an inch or two of headroom above
the top of the lower pizza that I put directly on the stone on the bottom rack.
You may have to increase your baking time by a few minutes because you have a lot less direct heat when you bake multiple pizzas.

Halfway thru baking, you may want to rotate each pan from top to bottom and bottom to top, as well as give them a 180 degree turn to make sure they bake evenly.

You may also want to space out the timing of each pizza by 10-15 minutes so you can serve a succession of pizzas for your guests to try.
It also makes it easier to prep and serve when you are only dealing with one pizza at a time.

I'll try to take a picture of my oven rack/stone setup and add it to this post when I get a chance.

[Prufrock]

vcb -

Thanks for the great suggestions!

[DKM]

vcb gave good advice, but just a reminder of how much fun a person can have:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5368.0.html

[Prufrock]

vcb gave good advice, but just a reminder of how much fun a person can have: ...

Awesome.  I had my hands a little too full with four pizzas -- I think 12 would give me nightmares.

As for results, I implemented vcb's suggestions and they worked great.  I learned a few things from night:

(1)  If I invite people over for deep-dish pizza, they will come.  They will all come, as will their friends and significant others, along with a few strangers.  I attribute that to partly my friends all being graduate students (so free food => attendance), but mostly to deep-dish being a delicious, decadent treat this is almost universally loved but hard to come by in Seattle.

(2)  I am much slower in the kitchen than I would like to imagine myself being.  Much, much slower.

(3)  I really need to find a good method for removing the pizzas from the pan.  I've come to the conclusion that my previous successes removing pizzas from the pan have been simple dumb luck.  Three came out fine last night, but the fourth ... well, it's best not to talk about the mangled, disfigured remains of that poor pizza.  Luckily it was still delicious and I was the only person who seemed to mind.

I'm sure this has been discussed dozens of times, but my search attempts have been failures.  Can anybody point me to a thread discussing how to get the pizza out of the pan in one piece?  Am I better off just leaving it in the pan and serving it up from there?

[loowaters]

Congrats on what sounds like a pretty good pizza night despite that fourth pie not wanting to come out of the pan.  I think cutting it in the pan is an OK thing to do.  When I saw the Bourdain at Burt's piece on Travel Channel, Burt cuts them in the pan.  I've graduated to flipping them up and getting the lip of the pan under the edge and then sliding it out.  I had trouble at first but once I got my pan grip bent so there was no "play" in it, it's been pretty easy but can create a bit of splatter.

Loo

[Pete-zza]

Prufrock,

You might take a look at Reply 34 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8410.msg91118.html#msg91118, http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4094.msg34193.html#msg34193, and Reply 4 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5400.msg45653/topicseen.html#msg45653. Some people also use cake pans with removable bottoms but they can leak if one uses a lot of oil in the pan.

Peter

[DKM]

Glad things went so well for you.  Make enough of them and we has or will mangled a pizza.

[clg763]

I have been making a 16" that is a bear to remove in one piece, there are several ways to get it out though with pretty repeatable results. The first method is to have several spatulas on hand and a friend or two to lend their hands, work one spatula under and add more and more moving from that spot. The key to this method is to focus on the center of the pizza, the edges will take care of themselves. The aforementioned method is the best way to get a piping hot pizza out of the pan that I know if, but is sort of ad hoc.

If you are willing to let the pizza cool for 10 minutes or so, you can do the double flip method, my stuffed pizza is so thick that I can just do this onto a baking sheet and back onto a cutting board, but a normal chicago pizza will need to be flipped onto a round surface slightly smaller than the pan, I just use a smaller pizza pan.

The last way and my least favorite is to cut the pizza in the pan, I don't like this though because it can scratch my pans, especially when the pans are hot. Plus people can still have a tough time of removing cut slices from a deep pan.