Are you planning to make pizza at home? You might find the following tips helpful.
Bake pizza on a cookie sheet. Get a home pizza stone made of ceramic fire bricks or terracotta. Pre-heat the oven with the stone inside so its surface temperature is the same as the oven. You can also approximate a pizza stone by rolling the dough out on a cookie sheet that's been coated with a teaspoon of olive oil, a sprinkling of flour and semolina to prevent the dough from sticking.
Add warm water and more yeast into the dough. Heat water up to between 95 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit before adding it to the rest of the ingredients for the dough. Add about 3/4 of a teaspoon more yeast than the recipe calls for. Experts say yeast performs at its most optimal levels around 85 degrees. The warmer water and higher amount of yeast will help the dough rise more quickly so it will be ready to cook sooner.
Use milk instead of hard or soft water. Hard water (with excessive calcium carbonate content) is not good for the dough because it impedes the fermentation process that allows the dough to rise. On the other hand, soft water (with minimal mineral content) is not good because it yields soft and sticky dough. If you have either one of these water tendencies, replace the water with milk so the dough will rise nicely and be easy to molded into a pie shape.
Cover the dough with plastic wrap. The yeast is still active in the dough even after it rises. After you roll the dough into a pie shape, lay the dough in a steel pan and cover it with plastic wrap to let it rise again.
Sprinkle olive oil into the dough. Olive oil will keep the dough from sticking to the bowl while it rises, and adds elasticity to the dough so it will be easier to roll into a ball then flatten into a pie. Make sure that you cover the bowl with a dish cloth while it rises.
Fold in extra ingredients.
After mixing the dough, if you like to add personalized seasonings (such as oil, salt, sugar, herbs or spices), use your fist to carve them into the dough. Fold the extras into the dough so they mix together from the inside out.
Put toppings that cook fastest on the bottom. If you want a kale parmesan burrata pie, sprinkle some of the parmesan over the kale, so the kale doesn’t burn.
Roast vegetable toppings. Mushrooms, for example, hold a lot of water. Toss them raw on the pizza. If you will roast toppings, you can do it while preparing your last steps for making dough.
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