Pizza Progress
A good thin crust pizza is delicious but very difficult to make without a fancy pizza oven and dough flown in from Rome. Since buying our bread machine we have used trial and error to try and improve the crust and have recently made some progress. Here is the current method:
Add the following to bread machine:
180g warm water
1 tblsp olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
340g White Bread Flour
1 tsp dried yeast
Set the machine to pizza dough (~50min). Roll / manipulate the dough into a pizza shape using as much flair and panache as your dexterity will allow. If dough attaches to the ceiling or lands in a bowl of filthy washing up water at any time - go back to step 1. Dough can be stored in fridge in a plastic bag - some say this improves it. Lay flattened dough on floured pizza tray, trim edges and add a thin layer of tomato or pizza sauce. Plain tomato sauce (not puree) from a tin works surprisingly well. Place in oven for 3-5 minutes until steaming. Remove and add toppings of your choice. If you add the entire contents of your fridge and store cupboard you may have made a delicious dinner - but it is no longer a pizza. Return topped pizza to oven for 5-7 minutes, rotate / adjust, then cook for another 5-7 minutes. If you get bubbles in the crust you are a legend.
If there are any Italians reading this (Ciao!) - maybe they can suggest improvements.
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Pizza Progresso
OK, first I'll preface by saying I'm not even fully Italian American, so if nothing else realize that my comments are about as authentic as the Rolex you bought in Grand Central terminal for 75 bucks. On a continuum with Roberto Benigni on one end and Woody Allen on the other, I fall someplace in the middle. Which obviously isn't saying much.
1)The best way to become a legend is to use cold dough. Cold dough is more likely to produce bubbly crust than warm dough. It probably has to do with effusion of gases and the viscosity of cool versus warm fluids. I have no further comment 'cause I'm in over my head.
2)The best way to ruin good dough is to overload it with toppings. For one thing, pizza is simple: if you have to write more than three commas on the menu description it's stew, not pizza. The most surefire way to ensure you get no crust bubbles is to make sure that the sum of the forces exerted by the toppings is larger in magnitude than the maximum theoretical force of the expanding gases within a given region of the dough. See above.
3)Ingredient quality matters. Use good quality cheeses and tomatoes. None of this Kraft business. Kraft cheese goes on macaroni you feed a four year old, not on foods you take pains to prepare. Don't stop short of the goal line.
4)Use a pizza stone or a full brick pizza oven. The only real way to cook a pizza is at about 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Since most ovens in the home don't get this hot unless the rest of the kitchen is on fire, the next best thing is to preheat the stone to about as hot as your oven will go. At least you'll have some heat focused where you need it, near the dough. Bubbles baby, bubbles.
5)Use fine cornmeal as a barrier between the stone and the dough during baking. You can't grease a stone.
I'm sure there's more to be said, but I am working on being less of a windbag. Leave the gun, take the cannoli.
Completely wrong on the temperature
I have been in the pizza business since I was 16. As stated above " the only real way to cook a pizza is at about 1000 degrees Fahrenheit"
Is completely inaccurate. For example, if you had a Middleby-Marshall forced hot air gas conveyor oven, you could cook an 18" pizza or a 10" pizza w/at least 5 different toppings at 479 degrees Fahrenheit in about 8 minutes.
If you don't believe me, let me know and I'll give you a phone number to call to verify.