After contemplating making Buffalo pizza for quite some time I just made my first pies last night. It was so yummy and my Buffalo audience said it was spot on! Thanks to everyone on this site for lots of advice and pointers. I ordered 5 lbs of Ezzo Supreme pepperoni from the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company and portioned the bag for enough for each pie (4.8 oz for 14 inch pie) and put them in the freezer for next time. I used the recipe in the Buffalo, NY cookbook as follows. It has been posted on this site before. I did make everything exactly (with the exception of sauce as noted) but adjusted all the ingredients for two 14 inch pies since I can't fit the 18 inch ones in my oven. The sauce recipe doesn't make sense so I used a full can of tomato paste and added enough extra crushed tomatoes to equal the two cups it says it makes. Also I took someones advice cooked on pan for shorter (9 minutes for me) and only left it on my stone for 1 minute. I didn't have hi gluten flour so I made my own by adding gluten to AP flour using calculator I found online.
Buffalo pizza
(From The Buffalo New York Cookbook, The Countryman Press, 178 pages, $19.95)
Buffalo pizza dough
Prep Time: 25 hours (15 minutes active); Yield: 2 dough balls
0.24 ounce active dry yeast
28.8 ounces warm water (80 to 85°F)
3 pounds (48 ounces) high- gluten flour
0.96 ounce sugar
0.96 ounce sea salt
1.4 ounces shortening
Add yeast to a large bowl. Add water and whisk to blend. Pour into stand mixer bowl. Add flour and mix on slow. Sprinkle in sugar. After 2 minutes add salt. You may have to stop and scrape the sides to help dough come together. Restart mixer. After 2 more minutes, add shortening and mix 3 minutes.
Remove dough to a clean bowl, cover with a clean damp cloth, and let rise for 45 minutes. Cut into two balls, place on a cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Take dough out 1 hour before use.
Buffalo pizza sauce
Yield: 2 cups sauce (enough for two 18- inch pizzas)
3 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 ounce tomato paste
1 cup water
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried basil (or minced fresh)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Add olive oil to a large saucepan on low heat. Add tomato paste and water. Stir to thoroughly combine.
Add the rest of the ingredients, stir to combine, and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let cool.
Buffalo pizza
Yield: Two 18- inch pizzas
1 cup bench flour
2 rounds Buffalo Pizza Dough (see recipe above)
8 teaspoons shortening
2 cups Buffalo Pizza Sauce (see recipe above)
42 ounces shredded mozzarella
4 teaspoons olive oil (optional)
⅔ cup sesame seeds, onion powder, garlic powder, Cajun spice, or Parmesan (optional)
1 pound sliced pepperoni (preferably Margherita)
Preheat oven to its highest setting, preferably 550°F. Place pizza steel in the oven. After it reaches 550°F, keep oven closed for 1 hour.
If you have advanced pizza dough moves, this is where to show them off. If you don’t, cheat. Generously dust dough “bench” with flour (about ½ cup). Turn one dough round in on itself underneath to form a ball. Press down in the center and push out toward the edges repeatedly while also moving the dough in a circle clockwise for 15 seconds. Lift dough, dust the surface with flour, flip dough, then stretch from the center out to the edge while turning the dough in a circle for 2 minutes, and forming a slightly raised lip. Repeat until pizza is as wide as the pan and even throughout beyond the edge.
Use a paper towel to grease the entire surface of an 18- inch pizza pan with shortening (4 teaspoons). Place dough on pan and stretch out to arrange it so it reaches out a hair shy of the pan’s edge.
Ladle up to 1 cup of sauce from the center out in a spiral until it’s evenly spread out over the dough up to ¼ inch of the edge. If you’re making it Bocce Club style, ladle the sauce over the edge of the crust.
Evenly spread 21 ounces of cheese over the sauced dough. If you’re making it Bocce style, let the cheese cover the entire surface of the dough, including the crust. If you’re making it La Nova style, leave the crust rim cheese- free. You can either leave things at that or brush optional olive oil (2 teaspoons per pizza) along the rim and sprinkle sesame seed, onion powder, garlic powder, Cajun spice, or Parmesan on the crust ½ inch from the edge toward the center all the way around.
Evenly distribute half the pepperoni so that when you cut the pie in 8 slices there are 10 to 13 slices of pepperoni on each one. If there doesn’t seem to be room, just do your best to pile them in between each other— the pepperoni will shrink as it cooks and things will fall into place. Don’t worry if things don’t look exactly symmetrical. Controlled cup- and- char chaos is the effect you’re going for. If you’re making it Bocce style, make sure you have some pepperoni on the cornicione!
Place pan in oven for 10 minutes. Slide pizza off pan onto the steel and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Slide pie back onto the pan, cut into 8 slices, and serve.
Repeat for the second pie.
