Pizza Makers - A few stupid questions

[BigChiefOrganiser]

Firstly does anyone have a really great, simple thin crust recipe?

Secondly, do all pizza's need to have the tomatoe based pizza sauce? DH says yes, I think not. I'm thinking in terms of if I do a gourmet style topping, Thai satay chicken or such, what base would you use on the crust?

Do you have any recommendations for a very good Pizza recipe book? Would like gourmet style along with traditional. We have a tin of smoked duck meat in the cupboard, and would love to pair that with something on a pizza, but have no idea how to go about it.

If I make them about 10", how many would you need per person?

How long do you need to cook them for (thin crust, 10") or is it by sight?

We're going to start having pizza evenings to get us thruogh the long, cold winter, with a crowd of people over, and am clueless where to start. Will be having a practice this weekend though before I inflict it on other people.

I have a pizza stone and cutter, and flexible boards to slide pizza onto stone. Anything else I need?

TIA

Thanks for further tips. Can't wait to try.

I love the idea of the cheese in crust. We would make them for all to share, not individual ones, so would try to get a couple going as first people arrive.

I looked at the pizza peels, but did figure I'd need more than one. I'll give my flexi cutters a go, and see how that works out.

If I can get the house back tomorrow (landlady having bathroom repaired), I'll try the dough out.

Speaking of which, once the dough is risen, can you store in fridge for next day use, or is it better to use it the day you make it?

taffeta pizza oven looks great! I wonder if you can roast s in it?

I had pizza for tea.
For the base use
650 grams plain flour
Dissolve 1 tsp sugar in 1/4 pint warm water then add 1 tbls dried yeast. when mixture has frothed up pour into flour and add about another 1/4 pint warm water and need.
This will make a nice amount of dough which can be frozen or left in fridge for a couple of days

I cook mine on a metal tray with tiny holes in it on gas mark 7

Forget about the funny cheese other people use why not try blue cheese cut into 1/2 inch cubes Stilton or Yorkshire blue

yummy

no way is this 'gourmet' but i love BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce. especially with chicken and bacon topping mmmmmmm!

I struggled with how to get floppy pizza onto hot pizza stone for a long time. Now I make the pizza on a non stick baking sheet liner, like this www.amazon.com/Chefs-Planet-Cookie-Sheet-non-stick/dp/B0000CFFNI. Then I slide the wooden pizza shovel/thingy under the liner and transfer the whole lot, liner included, straight into the oven. Remove the pizza by sliding wooden shovel under the liner.

However, slide pizza off liner before cutting or it will no longer be reusable!

We did 2 trial runs, one for the family and one for just another couple over the weekend.

So what I learnt:

My pizza stone is FAB - it's an emile henry, can highly recommend it, and you can use it on an open flame as well

I need to precook thicker cut meats and onions

My oven had to be at 450c (non convection)

The warm water for the yeast needs to be exact, I did it once too cool and once too hot, when I measured the temp at 38c, it foamed really well and made the best dough.

For toppings I did:
Red wine dry sausage (need a way of cutting it thinner though), with tomatoes, mushrooms, mozzrella, tomatoe based sauce

Smoked Duck, with Hoisin sauce, red onions (precooked in pan with butter/olive oil), Monterey Jack or a nice firm cheddar, and chopped coriander (recipe from Chowhound)

Anchovy marinated in lemon, capers and red chilli with mozzarella and tomatoe based sauce (recipe from Jamie Oliver.com)

Was very successful, but need to work out how I can cook for bulk people. It took around 15mins per pizza (with very thin crust), so I could only do 4 per hour.

Has anyone tried with 2 pizza stones, cooking 2 pizza's at a time in their non convection oven? I'm pondering how that would work out, but would like some opinions before splashing out on another pizza stone.

Oh yes, and I followed the tip of making the pizza on the stone directly, I had everything lined up in bowls for each type I was making and it was very quick.

I have not used a pizza stone before though tried all the other suggestions. I have to say that even though I am considered to be an accomplished cook, the pizzas simply did not compare to our local Italian place where they use imported flour and spin the dough around for ages before transferring into their huge pizza oven. I might invest in a stone just to see if I" could match it but I doubt it.

Of course, if you are comparing to Pizza Hut or Pizza Express than homemade is probably better. I recall the pizzas at Frankie and Benny's which were veery obviously a couple of stacked tortillas

You know I saw Hugh FW build a pizza oven in the garden in last week's episode. It looked really easy. Very tempted to have a go. The episode might still be on iplayer?

Granite chopping board from tesco or wilko is what we use. Only 10£ but remove the little rubber feet.
We've heated both to cook pizzas together and just takes a bit longer to get up to temp.
Assemble pizza on either metal baking sheet with semolina sprinkled to prevent sticking or on teflon baking 'parchment' on top of metal baking sheet. Oven rack needs to be pulled out slightly and then a swift shove graceful movement on to stone. Semolina scattered on it helps with movement.
V yum.