Pizza

[Wilfy]

I am now the proud owner of an Ooni oven that the missus bought me for my birthday. Anyone else have one and have any tips for the novice. First couple using someone else’s dough came out ok but not quite as good as I was hoping for.



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[Cwrw666]

You forgot to put the pineapple on!

 

[Appleyard]

Can't say anything about the oven, but I make pizza dough from ordinary bread flour, sometimes mixed with spelt (which is a good mixture) or rye flour or even "ordinary" flour for a finer texture. Roughly flattened or rolled is good, I like thick puffy doughy bits and thin crisper toasty bits in one pizza, which is usually made oblong, to fit on a baking sheet. Ordinary baker's yeast, making sure there's enough for the job.

 

[lupinehorror]

know nothing of these ovens but as i'm a crust fan that looks excellent.

 

[Hanglow]

I've got a wfo too, here's the last marinara I made in it.

My tips would be:

Get some decent pizza flour like caputo saccorosso and some extra fine semolina, I use caputo semola rimincinata. The extra fine semolina is great as a dusting flour, much better than normal wheat flour. I order online from ADiMaria, who supply restaurants as well as consumers now. Their cheese and salumi are great too.

I like making the dough the day before, then making the individual balls for pizzas about 6 to 8 hours before cooking. Most recipes from chefs like Jamie Oliver etc are fairly bad and far too quick. You can get a good dough app called PizzApp for calculating times and amounts of ingredients.

Less is more when it comes to toppings, I still overtop a lot of my pizzas. That one excluded maybe...

Make lots of pizza, the only way to get better pizza! And even if you end up with some oddly shaped ones they always taste better than shop bought!

 

[An Ankoù]

Can't say anything about the oven, but I make pizza dough from ordinary bread flour, sometimes mixed with spelt (which is a good mixture) or rye flour or even "ordinary" flour for a finer texture. Roughly flattened or rolled is good, I like thick puffy doughy bits and thin crisper toasty bits in one pizza, which is usually made oblong, to fit on a baking sheet. Ordinary baker's yeast, making sure there's enough for the job.

Every recipe I've seen for pizza dough recommends bread flour or strong white flour, ie. high gluten flour. But the Italians use type 00 flour, which is French type 45, European type 450, UK plain flour or US cake flour.
I always used to use bread flour thinking that pizza was, well, bread, but the weak flour makes a much lighter and crisper base.

 

[jceg316]

I'm quite jealous of you. I love pizza and take it seriously, would love a pizza oven but my wife thinks "that's a step too far".

I went on a pizza making course where I learnt to make traditional Neapolitan pizza and have never looked back. My inlaws have a pizza oven and tonight we are gonna make pizza in it. I've made all the bases and will make the pizzas.

Do I have any tips, yes I do!

Neapolitan pizza is all about the base, everything else is a seasoning. With Italian cuisine, like many others, the quality of ingredients matters a lot. Here's my pizza base recipe:

makes 5 bases

1kg of good quality 00 flour
15g salt
650ml warm water
fresh yeast if possible (2tsp of dried yeast if not)

in a bowl add the flour and salt. In a measuring jug measure out the warm water and dissolve the yeast. Slowly pour the water into the flour and stir. When it's all combined, knead the dough for a long time, 20 mins.

Split the dough into 5 equal portion and lit rise in their own oiled containers for at least 8 hours. Preferably 24 hours in the fridge.

Just beofre shaping the base, get a can of San Marzano tomatoes. Pour into a bowl with a bit of salt and mix up with a fork, crushing any tomato chunks.

When ready to make, take a base and push outwards from the centre lightly with your fingers. Stretch the dough into a pizza shape.

Spoon on the tomato sauce, doesn't need to be thick. Add chunks of fresh high quality mozzarella and a thin grating of high quality parmigiano.

Slap in the oven until it's cooked. sprinkle on fresh basil. Eat, enjoy, drink a good beer or wine.

Don't overload the pizza, no topping should be so thick you can't see any of the others!

 

[Hanglow]

00 is just how fine it is. You can get italian 00 flour of different strengths, from something super weak like british plain flour to a strong bread flour. The caputo saccorosso for example is a 00 flour but is strong enough to make sourdough loaves out of.

Bread flours can also have added enzymes, I know alinsons in the UK does. Which is good for bread and in kitchen ovens, but not for something cooked in an oven as hot as a pizza oven, it will over brown then.

 

[peebee]

I'm using Shipton Mill's 00 flour (I think it's milled from UK wheat) and "The Pizza Bible's" base recipe (it uses a few grams of diastatic malted barley which seems very "beer" friendly, and is matured a couple of days in the fridge). I'm not claiming "Shipton Mill" flour is the best, but I bought 25Kg of the stuff for the last lockdown (may last a bit longer yet!).

The Marinaras that @Hanglow mentions are great (cheeseless). Another "lockdown" move was making my own Mozzarella cheese. Means I had to buy 10 years supply of rennet! This isn't as easy as some Websites make out and the results haven't yet improved on what you can get in the supermarkets (in floppy bags, not the disgusting block stuff). It certainly needs a few false starts to build up the skills. I do not make as much mess as when starting out (hell of a mess) but also ended up with one of those "InstantPot" cookers on route (expensive business this pizza making).

(EDIT: My supply of canned San Marzano tomatoes has dried up now, lucky I got a few month's supply! And growing your own basil! I can start to see out of the kitchen window again now.).

 

[BillyD]

Brother had one of the original Ooni and now has a Koda, I make do with some unglazed tiles in the oven on it's highest settings. There's an active FB group for Ooni users sharing tips, recipes and the like.

 

[peebee]

Worth a look: Some ovens have a "Broiler" setting (in-oven grill element with fan oven on high) which gets blindingly hot! Together with 5 kilos of solid steel pizza "stone" it does the job pretty well (pizza cooked in 2-3 minutes).

 

[Drunkula]

I like making pizza but absolutely detest it from a shop. When there's loads of you and someone wants to order pizzas - Get. To. Fu.... I could have a kebab, chinese or curry for the same price. Oh, you also want to pay eight quid for 3 slices of garlic bread now, do you? Do they have cup-a-soups for 35 quid? Sure you don't want to order a couple of those, too? Ooohh, 'knew' I'd get 'like this' did you? 'Always this same' is it?

Aaaaanyway. Snackmasters on pizza was a bit of fun this week.

 

[aamcle]

Here you go :- https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php

 

[jceg316]

Is it a gas fired oven or do you burn wood?

 

[Oneflewover]

Making a wood fired oven is high on my list of goals for 2021. Not sure where to start yet, so if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears!

 

[Wilfy]

Is it a gas fired oven or do you burn wood?

Mine is gas fired.

 

[Wilfy]

Making a wood fired oven is high on my list of goals for 2021. Not sure where to start yet, so if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears!

Instructables is a canny website.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.instructables.com/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/?amp_page=true

 

[starseeker]

Here is mine , it is a kilnlinings veneto .

 

[peebee]

Worth a look: Some ovens have a "Broiler" setting (in-oven grill element with fan oven on high) which gets blindingly hot! Together with 5 kilos of solid steel pizza "stone" it does the job pretty well (pizza cooked in 2-3 minutes).

Actually, after having a grub through that pizza forum that @aamcle posted (it's quite good!), I see I was quite fortunate having a cooker with such a fierce "broiler" setting (over here it isn't described as "broiler" but can't remember what they called it now). Seems many cooker's have a rather "limp" broiler setting (if they have the setting) that is unsuitable for pizzas. Sorry if I mislead anyone!

 

[DavieC]

Classic Pizza Dough
I use this recipe, gives great results.