What I Learned From Chef Peter Reinhart About Perfect Pizza Making?

I’ve been making pizza at home for a while now. I’ve done my trials and tests, have had my hits and misses, and it was not until I got my “go to pizza dough recipe” and had back to back success with it, I started making it for larger crowds (friends and relatives). Now I wander somewhere between the borderline of being obsessed with pizza making and wanting to learn so much more about it. I want to be perfect at it. So I went ahead and took this course. And believe me, there’s so much with regards to techniques that we food bloggers do not talk about or are not aware of. There’s no substitute to learning from experts and I’m so happy that I took that course.

Revelation: I was almost there doing things right, but again I’ve been missing certain steps and doing certain others in the wrong way

About the class

In the class, the chef talked about and shared 4 types of pizza dough recipes, and worked with one type, showing the process step by step. The method is same for all four, but the ingredients and the proportions differ. The highlight of the class was very detailed demonstration along with explanation that you can hardly find anywhere. He also shared some basic pizza sauce varieties, herb oil and the like. (all recipes, one by one, will be shared in my blog as and when I try)

So, if you fancy pizza making and getting that perfect restaurant like crust, I mean the one with that bump on the sides/edges, join along as I practice my lessons at home. 

To start with I chose to work with

Country Pizza Dough

This recipe makes 2, 10-12 inch pizzas.

All purpose flour, 1.5 cups

Whole wheat flour, 0.5 cup

Active dry yeast, about ½ a tsp (dissolved inn about 25 ml of lukewarm water and a tsp of sugar)

Sugar, 1 to 2 teaspoon

Salt to taste

Olive oil, 1 tsp

Water, about 170 ml (a little more when you start kneading the dough)

You can easily double or triple the recipe, keeping the all purpose flour to wheat flour ratio 75:25 respectively. Also, remember to increase other increased as per the proportion.

The original recipe is shared below and the above one is reduced to my requirement.

Original Recipe

All purpose flour, 3.75 cups

Whole wheat flour, 1.25 cup

Active dry yeast, 1 ½ tsp (dissolved in about 60 ml of lukewarm water) You could also use instant yeast (1 tsp), in which case the dissolving part is not required and hence add the 60 ml water to the 420 ml mentioned below)

Sugar, 4 teaspoon

Salt to taste

Olive oil, 1 tbsp (you can use any other vegetable oil)

Water – 420 ml (a little more when you start kneading the dough)

Mixing the Dough:

Gather all the ingredients.

In a mixing bowl, mix together all dry ingredients to spread evenly. (If using instant yeast, add it along and mix together)

Now, add the wet ingredients, including yeast dissolved in water (skip this, if you have already used instant yeast), oil and water. Using your hand or a wooden spoon, coarsely mix together the ingredients for about 1-2 minutes, ensuring that the dough is absorbed completely. Even if the dough feels a little dry at this stage, DO NOT add more water yet.

Allow the dough to rest for 5 minutes.

Using your hand or the dough hook of your electric or stand mixer, knead the dough as it turns soft, supple and slightly sticky. You may have to sprinkle water a bit when you begin with this stage, but DO NOT pour, check consistency and add. You can’t be very precise about the time of kneading here, you need to feel the dough and know when to stop; something you’ll get better with practice. However, if hand mixing, it will require longer mixing time as opposed to mixer.

The Stretch and Fold:

Now, dab a little oil on your work surface, and spread it around a foot diameter. Transfer the dough on to the oiled surface and slightly tap it down. 

This part is the awesome-st! I’ve always wondered how these chefs get such smooth and fluffed up dough when done with it. And here’s the answer – the stretch and fold technique!

Now, this is a very easy process, but hard to explain in writing. So watch this video. The chef is using a lot stickier dough in the video, so he is dipping his fingers in a bowl of water after every round, but the dough you are working with would not require that; this isn’t too sticky and is easy to work with.

You need to do 4 times of stretch and fold, and after every round cover the dough with the bowl and let it rest for 5 minutes. Believe me; you’ll be amazed with the result!

Storing the dough:

Once done, transfer the dough to the greased bowl and cover with cling wrap. Store it in the refrigerator overnight. You can even divide the dough into two equal parts now and keep the parts in two bowls; big enough to let the dough expand (these are going to fluff up double the size).

That’s it, you are done for the day.

But I wasn’t! :P I was checking back on the dough every other hour or so; seriously, I haven’t yet worked with such a smooth and fluffed up pizza dough yet and every look at it makes me so happy!

Next day, when you are ready to bake it –

Take the bowl out of the refrigerator about 2-3 hours before you start making the base.

The dough would have nicely fluffed up and doubled in size now. 

Preparing the base:

Transfer the dough on to a bed of flour (on your work surface). Using your fingers slightly stretch it down into a circle, taking care to work mildly towards the centre and more towards the edges.

Now, here is the tricky and the most intimidating part – the dough would be sticky to not let you roll it down and we are not talking about hand tossing as well, for the same reason (those much less sticky). So here you are going to hand stretch the pizza with the back of your palm and your thumb fingers.

Dust the back of your palm with flour and carefully place the stretched dough over it. Now bent down your knuckles and using your thumbs work around the edges circling the dough and stretching it in the meanwhile. When doing this the dough will hang down and so be very careful to not to tear it in the center (mine did in the first try and I had to patch that up), so once you reach about 7-9 inch diameter, place it back on the bed of flour and let it sit for a couple of minutes. Then again do the same process, to get the base to about 10-12 inch size.

I tried looking for a video that demonstrates the process (the class video is a mix of all and can’t share just a part here). So this is the closest to the one described above I got, however he is circling the dough a lot faster and but you might want to remember, especially if you are a first timer, slow and steady wins the race! :P

You will now have the stretched dough with thinner base and a slightly thicker (bump) edges – I’ve always wondered how these professional chefs get that bump on the edges and now I have the answer! :P 

Adding the Toppings:

It’s time to place the stretched down on the pizza peel. I did not have one, so I placed mine on a well greased aluminium sheet.

Now, spread the pizza sauce; take care not to overdo to avoid a soggy pizza. A recipe for the perfect red pizza sauce will be shared soon, until then use this recipe for pizza sauce, which is equally good.

Generously sprinkle cheddar cheese over the sauce. Now let me tell you not many use cheddar on pizza, but I’ve been using it since the time I started making it and it gives an amazing flavour. You could also use other varieties like Parmesan, goat cheese and the like in combination with mozzarella.

Place toppings of your choice over that. Check here for topping ideas, in this one I used chicken ham and bacon along with onions. Again, top with a mix of mozzarella and cheddar. 

Baking the pizza:

Preheat oven to the highest possible temperature.

Transfer the pizza peel or the aluminium sheet with the topped pizza on to pizza stone or an inverted baking sheet, or a turn table, which was my case.

Bake for about 8-12 minutes. Now, at my end 482F is the highest (250 degree Celsius) and so, I preheated it for 10 minutes initially and to adjust the crispiness, I baked it for 2 minutes extra. In an over with even higher temperature like 550 F, you need bake it only for 6 minutes or so, checking the crispiness level. If using wood fried ovens, it takes just a minute, it seems!

The key is that the sides should be browned slightly and so should be the bottom.

That’s it and you have the perfect pizza ready in your home kitchen! Slice it up using a pizza cutter and bite into heavenly goodness!