pizza

I made a few pizzas last night. The cheese sticks were pretty amazing. 

The last inch and half up to the crust on the cheese pizza was incredible in terms of flavor, but the dough up to that point was undercooked. 

Then the pepperoni pizza was overcooked as a result of me trying to make sure the dough was good. 

Lesson learned: cast iron cooks a pizza like this WAY better than my steel pan (at least in my oven). I still can't get my dough quite right. I think it may be the altitude messing with the recipe I'm using. The dough is not rising as much as it should and it's a bit too heavy. I think I need a higher water content too as this dough was dry and then I didn't get the pockets of air that I should have gotten inside the dough. The dough is going to take some tweaking. I do however like the addition of the wheat flour to my usual bread flour. It just gives it a little more flavor.

 

more pizza

Here is Sunday's pizza. I usually make enough dough for two pizzas when I make dough, so I can let one cold ferment in the fridge for the next day.

I had enough dough left to make a set of cheese sticks and a smaller pan pizza. The cast iron does a great job cooking the dough. I know the cheese looks burnt around the edges but honestly this is the best part of the pizza due to the flavor located here.

At the moment I think the c rust is suffering from not having a consistent thickness. I feel like I need a dough roller. It's something I've thought about building though so maybe it's just my desire to build something I can use to make pizza. This also makes me want to cast some specfici cast iron cooking pans for pizza. 

 

chicago style

 

Eric sent this to me a couple days ago. I've been making Chicago style pizza's for last couple years. Jill's family used to own a pizza place in Illinois and that's what I base my Chicago style pizza on. Before that it was Papa Dells in Champaign that met my Chicago style pizza needs. Ian and I would ride down and pick up 2 slices a piece wrapped in aluminum foil and then ride back to the studio to have lunch there. We'd have one slice for lunch and save the second for dinner. 

detroit style pizza

I've been on this quest to make the best Detroit style pizza at home, since going to Detroit and having some amazing pizza there. It's been a work in progress, but I think I'm getting close. These are a few of the pizzas from the last few weeks. Sunday I made the cast iron pan one and the one above. We destoyed the first one and saved the cast iron pan one for later. I had part of it for leftovers last night and the crust was the best I've made yet. We've been making pizza as a family for a long time, but I have literally thrown out everything I normally do to make this style of pizza. I've changed the crust, sauce, and cheese and I'm zeroing in on a pizza that I would eat over any other restaurant. I'm close, but not quite there. It's all about the pursuit...well and eating good pizza.