Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Ken, I finally got this from the library and made the dough again. This time I used the one in the book which makes enough dough for 4 pizzas and made one each of plain, pepperoni, potato and pineapple (totally unplanned alliteration pizzas)

The broil is genius, I baked 3 at 500 convection and would broil the top one until done then moved the other two up the racks switching back to convection until the bottom of the top pizza was done. I might just try this as larger sheet pan pizzas but totally am in love with the dough. Looking forward to trying some of the variations in the book. I was in a hurry on Friday so just went with what was in the fridge/pantry.

thanks again!

jean f, can you share the potato recipe? My wife keeps asking and I keep dodging. My Irish ancestors are becoming embarrassed!

Hi Steve
The recipe wasn't from the book, it's just the way I make it:

1- slice the poatoes very thin (a mandolin is great here) and microwave/steam them with some water and salt until done and let them cool a bit. They won't cook any more on the pizza since it's a fast bake. My cousin dices her potatoes but I like the slices instead.

2- Once the dough is ready, spread it lightly with olive oil, lay the potatoes on top and brush with a bit more oil, season with coarse salt and rosemary or oregano then bake until dough is set and potatoes are browned.

We have a grocery store here that makes really good brick oven pizza (really! it's my favourite store) and they make a potato pizza with the slices under the cheese that is tasty. I tend to like it without sauce and cheese though.

Carmelized onions and roasted garlic are lovely on this pizza although my kids pick them off.

This pizza makes a great appetizer.

edit to add: turns out jim lahey has a Pizza Patate recipe: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15877/jim-lahey039s-pizza-patate-quotmy-breadquot
The brining of the potatoes is intriguing, but I can't see the cooking time as working...that's a long bake!

Thank you for the recipe and information Jean. Sounds very good and I do have a mandoline to do the slices. So I will show it to my wife and see if it intrigues her. It likely will, though she is a cheese head when it comes to pizza. The rosemary and/or oregano will get her going too. Those are flavors she's only recently come to enjoy, but one's she is very enthusiastic about now.

I've looked over the Fresh Loaf thread and that is interesting too, but the 30 minute bake is very puzzling to me. Thirty minutes in a 500F oven will pretty much incinerate most pizzas, but apparently that was not the author's experience. And the recipe for the sweet potato version would be a big hit here. It is called camote here and greatly enjoyed in many forms.

So glad that you are enjoying it!

So I finally bought this book. There must be something wrong with me, as it was a bit of a pizza disaster! I struggled with getting the dough to roll out. I used the knuckles technique (which I have done a million times with other doughs without any problem), and before it would get anywhere close to size, I'd either end up with holes where the dough had 'windowed' really thin in spots, or it would shrink back on me (and most of the time, both). I even left partly stretched balls for 15 - 20 minutes to let them relax a bit, with no go. I then tried his other stretching technique, but the dough ended up sticking to the parchment I was using. In the end I got 4 10-inch rounds, the last two of which were painfully ugly. They also leaked and burnt on crap onto my stone (which despite being Emile Henry is NOT cleaning up, despite BKF and a scrub pad), my peel, and the bottom of my oven. Aaarg! I am not sure what I was doing wrong. I did the dough by weight, it had plenty of time to rise as I did it the night before, it had doubled in size, and rolled well into the first set of balls. I was sure he said that each round would do 10 - 12 inches. I also found that the broiler technique cooked the top beautifully but left the bottom of my pizza anemic despite pre-heating the stone for an hour, and doing the last 10 minutes of heat on the broiler setting for each pizza. By the end I plopped the stone on the bottom of the oven and got better results that way.

DH said that it tasted good, but I was too beyond frustration to really be objective at that point. What was supposed to have been a quick pizza night turned into a 2 1/2 hour ordeal that left flour everywhere and me in a foul mood.

Anyone have any ideas about what to do differently next time?

Carey, that sucks. I know the first time I used the dough it was harder to manage but then it got easier. I'm not looking for perfect rounds. I too had the anemic bottoms but things that help were preheating the pizza pans (I did not have a stone) but made the pizza making a bit hazardous working with a hot pan. Then I started making them on parchment (which you are right, sticks, what's up with that?) and plopping the whole thing down on the preheated sheets. I do 3 at a time at 550 on convection (rotating them around) and then broil the top when I feel the bottom is done enough.
Now that I have the baking steel made the bottoms were cooked well, but I can only do 1 pizza at a time.
So sorry it was frustrating for you!

Now that I've had some time to calm down and think about it (and look at videos online), I think there were a few things against me. It looks like Jim uses a ton of flour on the surface of the dough, and I clearly did not use enough on the bottom. Might have explained the sticking to the parchment thing as it is a wetter than normal dough. I think next time I would also take the time to stretch out all of the dough balls at once and then get them all topped before starting to cook them. I was trying to do my usual method of doing the next one while the first was in the oven - which is not practical with a pizza that goes from perfectly done to burnt as quickly as this one does, especially when the dough stretching part is tricky. I also think that I might skip the broiler part of the cooking and just do them on a hot stone. I did that with the last one and liked it better. I am also guilty of wanting beautiful rounds....which I won't be as picky about next time!

I am curious to try the Artisan Pizza and Flatbread recipe next to compare, but DH said he really liked this dough.

So I finally got around to doing the artisan pizza and flatbread in 5 minutes a day recipe. Much easier to work with!!! I made the olive oil version. It was pretty good. I think the Lahey dough was tastier, but I'll take easier to work with any day.

Sadly, my Emile Henry pizza stone has never recovered from the Lahey incident. It's a mess of burnt on bits.

Carey - I would strongly recommend calling EH: (302) 326 4800 (M-F 8:30 - 5:00 ET).
Their web site recommends soaking for 20 minutes but I assume you have tried that.
Fuzzy has a lot of experience with ceramics . . . .
Please let us know.