Pizza Crust Revisited

Drew and I have been working to achieve the perfect pizza crust for many years.  At first, we were thankful we could even make a decent pizza.  And really, the pizza crust recipe we've been using for the past 5 years or so has been really great.  Here is an attempt from a few years ago.

It's okay, but not great.  The crust is uneven, still kinda mushy in the middle.  Drew and I felt that we still have not achieved our pizza potential.  He started doing some research, I started doing some research, and the quest began again.

One giant improvement back in December was employing a super-heated pizza stone (preheat 500F for 30 minutes), which really helps to achieve a crust that's crispy on the outside and mealy (but cooked all the way through) on the inside. 

But it was still not enough for Drew.

This last time we made pizza, we improved upon the recipe by taking into account some of the lessons I learned from making bread.  We used bread flour instead of all purpose flour, and instead of using all 3 cups of flour, we only used 2! 

And instead of just kneading it for 10 minutes, we kneaded it for 25 minutes, adding only a little bit of extra flour just to get it off our hands.  Also, instead of letting it rise in a greased bag in the fridge, we left it in a greased bowl on the counter for about 5 hours.

Okay, here's the newly formulated recipe:

Ingredients (1 large crust):
-2 cups bread flour
-1 packet of yeast
-3/4 cup hot water
-1/2 cup milk
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp sugar

1.  Whisk water, milk, and yeast until bubbly.

2.  Add salt and sugar.

3.  Add bread flour little by little.

4.  Knead for 25 minutes on a clean surface.  Use as little extra flour as possible.  It will be hard to work with at first, but then it will develop a nice bounce to it as you work the glutens.

5.  Plop into a greased bowl covered with damp cloth for about 5 hours.

6.  Preheat oven and pizza stone for 30 minutes on 500F.  Yup, you read that correctly.

7.  Squish the big bubbles out of the dough, and form it into a nice flat circle.  Helps to cover it with cornmeal first though.

8.  Brush the top with olive oil to seal the top before you put the toppings on.  This way, it keeps the sauce from sinking into the crust and making it soggy in the middle.

9.  Top it, and bake it for about 10 minutes directly on the pizza stone.  (We found that transferring the pizza onto the hot stone is hard without a pizza peel.  You might have to slide it off a cookie sheet after letting it bake for a few minutes)

This was the best our pizza had ever been.  Deliciously chewy, crunchy bottom and soft middle, not a bit of sogginess. 

If you like making your own pizza, follow the directions here to improve upon your pizza crust technique! 

Stay tuned for a recipe for zesty, tangy homemade pizza sauce! :)

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.