A Hello and Pizza Interjection
This is my first post here, so I just wanted to introduce myself a little, then get on to my topic.
I'm a hobbyist baker that has tried several recipes with success in most of them. I have an 13 year background in food industry, of which 11 were spent in the pizza business. 3 of which was an ownership role. Great, fun, I must say, and very rewarding and satisfying.
I wanted to comment on 'The Pizza Primer'. I felt that was a well written piece, and I commend the author. The picture shown looked professionally made, and pretty derned yummy to boot! Well done.
What I wanted to add from experience is that we generally made our dough the day before and allowed it a slow proof in the 'fridge to allow it more time for flavor creation. As stated in the piece, it's not necessary, but it will produce a more flavorful crust. We also used a rolling pin to get the pizza to the desired shape, then worked it by hand to achieve the desired dimensions. It's really easy to do if you see it with your eyes, but hard to explain in type, so I'll forego doing that unless someone is really interested in the technique we used. While the dough is key as a base, the sauce can also make or break a pizza. I tend to like a less sweet, more spicy sauce with copious amounts of black pepper, and garlic and onion powder. The obligatory basil and oregano, dried. We used a formula of tomato sauce AND paste to achieve a quality depth of flavor. We also used parmesean in our sauce as a flavor ingredient, but not as a cheese. Our cheeses were mozzerella, provolone, and muenster. A 3/2/half mix is as close as I can remember it. Creamy, flavorful, and just enough stringy.
I'd be happy to help with any questions you good people might have on pizza that are within my experience to answer.
My successes as a novice bread baker include a three day sour for a rye that I was most proud of, the first loaf from Bernard Clayton's book which is a fantastic recipe, soft pretzels which took a little experimentation and all the results were tasty, but some were ugly, and some very nice biscuits with a gravy recipe that is out of sight.
Failures? Wheat bread which never rose and is my worst, but I'm not knocked off that horse yet. I also had limited success with Girl Scout thin mints, heheh. I used the wrong mint extract, and the chocolate was on your fingers when the cookies were room temp. Not a complete failure, mind you, as I crushed some Altoids to counter the spearmint and each and every one of them were tasty and devoured. Truthfully, nothing is a failure of you learn from it.
I look forward to reading you folks and participating in some interesting discussions.
Well met, all and good health.
TDHO