Pizza

Pizza-making challenges me. The complexity of the crust, the toppings, baking it, cutting it, eating it. I don't bake pizza frequently enough to remember how much flour I use for a cracker crust, a thick bread crust or something in between. NNo do I remember how much water I mix with the flour. I'd like to think I'd recorded this information somewhere, but I don't remember where for this round of pizza construction.

Yesterday's event was based on 700 gm of flour and about 75% water. I just didn't recall how many 10" pies I'd make from that nor if they'd be thin or thick crusted. I thought that I'd make 5 or 6 pies but it didn't look good for even 5 after the first three came to life from Half the dough. I made the 4th and 5th from the remaining dough--they  have me two medium crust 10" pies.

Today, I mixed 400 gm flour for two pizzas, fat crust requested by my mom. 70% nearly hot water, 0.5 teaspoons of instant yeast, 1 teaspoon salt. It sat atop the warm fridge for 4 hours. I kneaded it for 5 minutes, but I can't recall why, as I've made so many pies using a no-knead philosophy. Let it rest 20 some minutes, then rolled them out to about 10" on parchment paper. Toppings went on. And the pies went into the 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.

I strive to achieve an airy crumb with thick crust.