How can I make lovely thin crisp pizza?

[tiokiko]

I use Delia's basic pizza dough recipe which seems pretty standard, but I am always really disappointed in my pizzas.

I like them really thin so they go all nice and bubbly. When I make a thin one for DH and me the dough tastes tough; when I use the same recipe to make a deeper one for DD it works OK.

I pre-heat the oven so it's as hot as possible and use a preheated baking sheet.

What's the route to success? Am I doomed to failure because I don't have a wood-fired oven? Do I need a different recipe, pizza stone, something else?

Really interesting thread. I had a pizza base bake-off with a friend once, lasted several months and we tried out lots of different recepies. Nerdy but well worth it in the end. My friend swears by a bit of real ale or lager in his recepy. Its yeast based and gives depht so he might be right. I on the other hand take out half of the normal yeast recommended in most recepies and replace with 1-2 teaspoons of honney (depending on size of dough batch) and add a little milk to it. The milk gives a chewey, stretchy side to it as do the honney which also helps what little yeast there is to rise. Professional pizza makers swear by using very little yeast by the way as too much makes the dough bubbly and moochy as in bread. And that is probably why your recepie is great for deep pan pizza's OP. If anyones intersted I'll dig out the recepie on my honny/milk pizza dough.

Wraps (as in the sandwich wrap type bread) toast beautifully under the grill with pizza style toppings. Thin and crispy (and easy) as you like!

Just don't pile toppings too thickly or the middle goes soggy. And use fresh tomato rather than a sauce for the same reason.

Snuppeline yes please, I love the idea of a nerdy bake-off. I'm happy that I have the sauce sorted and am just irked by the base being wrong so up for trying anything different - it's the stretchy/chewiness I'm after so the honey/milk option sounds interesting. There is sugar in the recipe I use but will def try honey instead.

Interesting also about using less yeast, I think the Delia recipe sounds like more yeast than some of the others so maybe that's part of it.

Littleomar maybe Delia is right then, will try with a 50:50 mix next time.

HoB good tip (and MM too re: Lebanese bread) - I have tried that before and it's good but I really want to crack making my own dough properly!

A pizza stone made a massive difference to my pizzas. Oven up to 250 with the pizza stone in, roll out the dough ( I use bread flour, the stickier the dough the better so need lots of flour for rolling out )then put the disc on the boiling hot stone ( I bring it out of the oven on the oven rack ), quickly smear on a little tomato sauce ( I make mine using chopped toms reduced in olive oil with garlic , then blitzed ), mozzarella and basil etc, needs 5 minutes.

I got my pizza stone from Pampered Chef but they are widely available I believe.

For the time poor: I use the round lebanese pitta bread as it makes a crispy and tasty base.

I pre-heat the oven to highest temp on fan and put the pizza in for around 5-7 minutes.

I often freeze the homemade tomato base which I make from gently frying onion, carrots, celery, peppers until they are soft (whatever veg is available), add tinned tomatoes and a little chicken stock. Let reduce and thicken, then blend using a handheld blender. This is a delicious base or sauce for pasta ect.