Spill your secrets?

This is NOT another pizza fight thread, let's try not to turn it into one, ok?

TThis is a pizza DOUGH thread. 

I'm looking for some new recipes for dough. I've been using ready made dough a lot lately, and I want something more. 

I'm looking for a good deep dish recipe specifically, but I'll accept any and all styles from pie crust to Sicilian bread styles. Bonus points for a good one to make a homemade stuffed crust.

I've done a few different "breadless" crusts as well, including meatloaf, cream cheese, and that horrid horrid cauliflower. 

So what do you got?

Yes, I've been to the Google's. There's too much that even with very specific search terms I'm not finding anything really stand out ish, so you, real people, could maybe help fill in some gaps. 

I've had good luck with the recipes in Flour Water Salt Yeast. They're good if you like a crunchy big crust.

I'm interested in this. I've been using the recipe from Joy of Cooking but it isn't quite what I want, some of that probably is my fault. 

Flour tortillas.  They make a super thin, crispy crust.

In my younger years, flour tortilla crust pizzas were a real staple of my life!  You know, I haven't done it in years.  I should.  My 7 year old would like that.  

I usually use a standard white bread recipe and stretch it out to whatever size an thickness I desire. Poke whatever areas you don’t want to rise with a fork. 

Pre cooking the dough a little has been a useful technique as well. 

We've been using this recipe for the last couple years and like it: https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/homemade-pizza-dough-recipe/

What about Pita bread Pizza ?

a little thicker than tortillas , but not  as thick as pizza dough

My secret? Go to your favorite local pizza place and ask to buy some of their dough. I've even bought their sauce before. Bringing a case of beer helps too.

californiamilleghia said:

What about Pita bread Pizza ?

I used to do that for my kids when they were little. They were surprisingly good pizzas.

The Greek pitas, not the pocket ones

I use the same dough that we use to make our soft pretzels.   3c flour, 1c water, 1 tbs butter, 1 tbs, brown sugar, 1/2 tbs salt, 1/2 tbs yeast.  Makes enough for 2 full size crusts or 4 personal pizzas.   If you like the idea of pretzel crust (since we have a soft pretzel recipe you can probably guess we do)  brush the outer edge with lye/water mix and salt before baking

I suggest starting here: dude is a pizza genius. 

Folgers said:

I usually use a standard white bread recipe and stretch it out to whatever size an thickness I desire. Poke whatever areas you don’t want to rise with a fork. 

Pre cooking the dough a little has been a useful technique as well. 

That's more or less what my recipe is, I'll often split the batch and do half as bread and half as pizza. I don't pre-bake, but I often cook in a preheated 500F skillet. 

Because I normally don't have time to make the crust what with rising times and all, we usually use Naan bread from Walmart.  It's not too thick nor too thin and it's the perfect size for a personal pizza.

I'll have to look for my recipe tomorrow but I use a small amount of apple cider vinegar.  I'm intrigued by the brown sugar used in one of the recipes above.

Since the weekend is coming up I may have to make a few batches of dough.  You know you can freeze it don't you?  And then just pull one out when you need it.

mslevin said:

My secret? Go to your favorite local pizza place and ask to buy some of their dough. I've even bought their sauce before. Bringing a case of beer helps too.

Done that a few times. Home ovens don't really get hot enough for my liking, so we'd rather just eat the pizza at the place. 

z31maniac said:

mslevin said:

My secret? Go to your favorite local pizza place and ask to buy some of their dough. I've even bought their sauce before. Bringing a case of beer helps too.

Done that a few times. Home ovens don't really get hot enough for my liking, so we'd rather just eat the pizza at the place. 

Propane grill will get hot enough. 

Peabody said:

californiamilleghia said:

What about Pita bread Pizza ?

I used to do that for my kids when they were little. They were surprisingly good pizzas.

The Greek pitas, not the pocket ones

Naan bread is even better, if you are more of the thick crust pizza fan.

mtn said:

z31maniac said:

mslevin said:

My secret? Go to your favorite local pizza place and ask to buy some of their dough. I've even bought their sauce before. Bringing a case of beer helps too.

Done that a few times. Home ovens don't really get hot enough for my liking, so we'd rather just eat the pizza at the place. 

Propane grill will get hot enough. 

Propane grills will get 750+? Does the water vapor released from combustion impact it's ability to make a crisp crust?

In reply to z31maniac :

I've had great luck with a propane grill and a pizza stone. Crank it up to max and preheat for 15-20 minutes. Throw the pizza on and it has a perfect crispy and bubbly crust in about 5 minutes. 

EvanB said:

In reply to z31maniac :

I've had great luck with a propane grill and a pizza stone. Crank it up to max and preheat for 15-20 minutes. Throw the pizza on and it has a perfect crispy and bubbly crust in about 5 minutes. 

Good to know! Although I'm not sure I care enough about homemade pizza to drop the money on a nice propane grill. We have a plain old circle Weber charcoal grill and works well for what we typically do. 

I've been making homemade pizzas since my college days.  Let's just round it off to forty years, shall we?  With some small variation, my recipe looks something like this:

1 cup very warm water

1 package yeast ( here in the twenty-first century, I've taken to using Fleishman's Pizza Crust yeast, works well, less rise time)

salt (a teapoon?)

olive oil ( a tablespoon?  three?)

sugar (not more than a tablespoon)  I've historically used Turbinado sugar, just to give the yeast an early snack.

flour, enough to get a proper dough consistency, probably at least three, maybe four cups.  The flour you use will have a significant effect on the finished product.  I mostly use King Arthur all purpose, but I've used bread flour also.  Feel free to experiment.

This will make one fairly large dough, or two smaller ones.  Some of the best pizzas I've made came from the half of this recipe that I didn't use right away and put in the freezer.  Let thaw, let rise, and go from there. 

This is NOT another pizza fight thread, let's try not to turn it into one, ok?

This thread made me too hungry to fight about anything.

We enjoy pizza on Naan Bread.  Bake it for 5-10 minutes before making pizza out of it.  In the summer we rub on olive oil and grille it.

Wonder how it would work as a calzone.

We have also used tortillas to make thin crust pizza, but found them a little too thin for "structural integrity" purposes. My wife had the inspired idea to use two tortillas with a small amount of grated cheese between them as glue. They were perfect!

I have an outdoor wood fired pizza oven that is amazing but due to our house location, the oven in the backyard is useless for 6 months out of the year. Last fall I discovered something called a "baking steel" and bought one. It is UNBELIEVABLE how well it works in the house in our oven! We can now do homemade pizza all year! Yahoo!!!

What I found was hydration makes a HUGE difference between the WFO(750*) and house wall oven(550*). Store bought/restaurant supply dough balls are geared toward the 450-550* ovens used commercially. They scorch/burn in my WFO within 60 seconds. I'm going to try some of your dough recipes in the upcoming weeks. Thanks.