Hi Pete and all,
First post here. Thank you for your contributions to this community - this recipe was the first pizza recipe that I made a few months ago. Today, I made it again. It was very difficult at first - no pizza experience, very sticky dough, small disasters when sliding dough onto pizza stone, no pizza peel the first few times. The first time I made it, it tasted absolutely delicious. After that, it was always good. Today, it tasted very good. Also, the process went very smoothly today (no ripping of dough, nice round shape and smooth transitions to the peel and to the oven.
My dough had a slight yeasty taste sometimes and I am thinking that is because I prefermented for 11.5 hours - right?
My impression of the dough is that it is bready, while being airy. I made 3 toppings - one was pesto, one was marinara and one was a sausage tomato - all sauces were made from scratch. The one that tasted the best with this dough was the sausage one - it was thicker and matched the texture of the dough. The marinara one (SM tomatoes, garlic, evoo) was a little too light for the dough as was the pesto. I am thinking that I should try a different dough for those types of toppings? But I have no idea what types of doughs are out there.
Also, I wanted to ask Pete or anybody how you guys deal with the super sticky dough. I used plenty of flour today. The previous times, I had disasters transferring the dough to the peel (it was so soft and elastic). Today, I draped it over my arm and transferred it quickly onto the peel that had cornmeal on it. Is this the technique?
Lastly, what can I do about those huge bubbles? I opened the oven and tried to pop it during baking but it wouldn't pop.
Thanks so much.