Homemade pizza crust VS Restaurant Quality

[Dave Snowden]

I have tried all the dough recipes out there on the internet for making homemade pizza dough and i have a few questions...

Everytime the pizza comes out.. it always tastes good but the dough never turns out quite like a pizza you'd buy from a pizza place.

It's always a lot softer and i can always taste way too much all purpose flour.

Why is this?

I have an electric oven and cook it at 500...

Is it because home ovens just cant cook the dough right.. enough to make it look and crisp it enough to taste like a commecial pizza oven?

Is it because mutli-purpose flour is not really what a pizza should be made with?

I have all my toppings down a to perfection.. fresh mozarella, fresh double cut pepperoni, etc.

but as far as making a pizza at home... i cant get the crust to taste right.

HELP!

Should i use/order another type of flour from somewhere? Or buy a different oven for home use?

My goal is to someday open a shop but i want to perfect my recipe at home first.

No matter who's dough recipe i use from internet sites, it never turns out like anything that would qualify for commercial pizzaria quality.

thanks!!
Dave Snowden
david@dataheadz.com

[Steve]

Dave,

Welcome you to the forum!

Regarding your question, I suggest that you pour over the posts here, there is a ton of valuable information and you will be making "restaurant quality" pizza at home in no time at all.

To get you started and to answer your question, the flour does indeed play a large role in how your pizza will turn out. As a general rule of thumb, you should be using high-gluten flour, sometimes called "pizza flour," which is not generally available from your local supermarket. There are several websites that sell this type of flour, but you will pay a steep price in shipping. The most popular source is the King Arthur Flour Company. Their website is http://www.bakerscatalogue.com. Look for their Sir Lancelot High-Gluten flour. A good second choice is bread flour which is widely available.

In order for the dough to develop a good flavor, the dough must be allowed to rise (ferment) for 24 hours. This allows the yeast to work long and slow.

These are but a few tips that will bring your pizzamaking to a new level. Like I said, read over the numerous posts on this forum and you will find that nearly all of your questions have already been discussed and answered. 

[canadianbacon]

I am in Canada Dave, so getting high gluten flour here is just impossible    I have tried
pastry flour and it tasted better than regular all purpose flour, but I gave up on using it as it's almost $10 here for a very small bag.... I pay about $.80 for a huge bag ( 4x the size ! ) ( all purpose flour )

Steve has it right though, on the fermentation.... if you want pizza on Friday night, make your dough on the thursday night, and then just cover it and put it in the fridge.

Many places up here in Canada supposedly substitute 7-up for water in dough, but I don't know that for a fact, but I've heard that rumour a few times.  The 7-Up would help in the rising of the dough .... we don't have the assortment of pizza styles down in the States.   You could call 100 places here in Ontario and ask for a Chicago pizza and they would say "what's that ? " .... and no I'm not joking.... I've seen a few places that make a "fake Chicago" ... they just make a regular pizza and change the topping and sell it as a "Chicago" ... what a joke that is.... just silly if you ask me.

Anyway another little secret we use up here in the real pizza places is cinnamon.... pizza joints will add a bit of this into their sauce.... you can't tell it is cinnamon if the place has done it properly though.... it just gives it a nice taste that you just can't put your finger on.... it's very popular in Montreal ( very European )

I've never seen high gluten flour, but I'd love to try it....... I wonder where all these pizza joints get their flour from..... wow.

anyway welcome to the group, and tell your friends :-)

Mark

[Randy]

Mark I find it so odd that you can’t get high gluten flour from an in Canada source when Canada is one of the leading growers of the wheat used for high gluten flour.  Have you checked for the grain and maybe mill it yourself?  My sister-in-law has her own home mill.  I will ask on another list and see if they can help.

As far as the 7-up goes, I could see that working with the corn syrup and citric acid.

Randy

[canadianbacon]

Hi Randy,

I'd REALLY appreciate that if you could find info on that ! ... speaking of mills, I DO have a mill !
I use it for milling my grain for my beer ( I'm an all grain brewer - our club does it like the breweries do )

anyway so I have the mill.......... hmm interesting stuff, my sister grinds all her own flour, so I guess I could find wheat for bread... wow interesting Randy.

By the way ( BTW ) I had no idea Canada is a leading grower... I guess out west this is where that is done, in the province of Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan .... very big prarie provinces ... never thought of that before.

Anyway thanks if you can get me any info on your other list , thanks Randy !

Mark

[canadave]

Actually, if you go to the Real Canadian Superstore Wholesaler store, check for the Sunspun "39" 20 kilo bag--I'm not sure how "high-gluten" it is, but its bag is marked "for making pizza, bagels, etc."  I've used it and liked it for my NY-style pizza.

The problem with getting flour and bakers goods (in fact anything at all) online in Canada is two-fold: a) there's a perception that there's not enough retail consumers who'd be online to justify making a website to cater to them, and b) there's also a perception that if retail consumers need anything online, they can always just buy it from the States.  Of course, this ignores the fact we pay Customs taxes in addition to shipping..........

Dave

[Pete-zza]

One of the interesting things about Manitoba flour is that it is imported by the Italians and combined with their own national flours (like the "00") and exported back to the U.S. for use by pizza makers and other bakers. Some Italian millers also sell the Manitoba flour by itself.

Peter