The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Pizza for one

wmtimm627's picture
wmtimm627

Pizza for one

I've seen a lot of recipes all around the web and in numerous cookbooks that I own for pizza.

I live alone and find that most recipes aren't friendly to the single baker (I can live with sharing bread though).

I own almost every gadget that a baker could want; stand mixer, food processor, bread machine, electric convection oven with massive stone.

I just need some recipes for pizza dough that will keep well in the refrigerator or freezer. I see a lot of stuff everywhere that refers to that, but never any good details. Also, there seems to be a lot of differences as to what kind of flour to use in pizza dough. I'm a big fan of thin crust pizza (fancy that, from someone in the Chicago area), so I'm going to try Reinhart's Roman version next.

mrfrost's picture
mrfrost

Learn baker's math to make(perfectly) any amount of dough you need, for any recipe.

starters:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/handbook/baker039s-math

Also, the perfect site for you is pizzamaking.com . Hundreds of recipes, of all styles. Personalized help from forum moderator(Pete-zza). Dough calculators. All kinds of advice. Everything a home pizza maker needs. Promise, pizza geniuses over there.

I got so confident making pizza crusts, I decided to give bread baking a go. All of this stuff here at Freshloaf seems not so complicated after focusing first on a small subset of breads. After that, it's mainly just a matter of more ingredients.

dlt123's picture
dlt123

I've had nothing but failure with my pizza doughs... I can make a great loaf of bread but my pizza dough is awful.

I'll give the pizzamaking site a look.  Hope it helps my pizza.  :)

Thanks,
Dennis
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BerniePiel's picture
BerniePiel

I'm in the same circumstantial boat as WmTimm627,  I think you have just answered several questions re pizza dough, ingredients, proportions, etc..  Many thanks. 

Bernie Piel

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

I've had great success freezing my pizza dough. I form it into balls for individual pizzas, making the balls the size for the pizza I plan on baking, 8" to 14" size pizzas, PR recipes for pizza give you a good idea of how many pizza balls to make from one batch of his dough. I always freeze my dough in individual balls. Place the balls into a lightly oiled plastic bag and then place all into a large freezer zip lock bag, take them out one at a time as needed. Just thaw it on the counter a couple of hours before baking. Perfect for a quick night pizza.

Sylvia

Breadandwine's picture
Breadandwine

I'm in the same situation as you - in that my wife doesn't like my pizza - so I just make them for myself, most of the time.

Here's one I made recently, on my blog:

http://nobreadisanisland.blogspot.com/2010/06/vegan-pizza-makes-1-large-or-2-small.html

It's a vegan one, but of course you could use any topping you like on it. As we can all agree, the base is the key.

I think it's important not to stress too much about ingredients, methods, etc. As long as your dough is soft and squishy, it'll be fine.

This is the recipe I use if I’m in a hurry. But there are ways to improve it. I often use a 70% hydration (meaning 140g of liquid in the above pizza). This makes a sticky dough which I then knead for 10-20 seconds several times over an hour or more. 

As soon as it is manageable (still sticky, but any bread you're going to roll out with flour can be a lot stickier than a dough for bread rolls, for instance), I'll cover it by inverting the bowl over it, and leave it for a couple of hours until I'm ready to bake it.

I'm not a great fan of freezing dough or keeping it in the fridge, but if you want to, any dough can be kept this way.

About my pizza base, I’m a bit of a curry freak and I think adding curry (powder or paste) to the base just lifts it to a different level.

On the deep-pan or thin crust angle, it all depends on the size of the pizza you finish up with. A pizza made with 200g of flour will make a deep-pan pizza if you roll it out to 25cm (10”). If you make 2 pizzas the same size, they’ll be thin-crust.

I like a happy medium, myself!

Cheers, Paul