Comments on: 10 paths to painless pizza-making

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:54:20 +0000

Deb, I’ve never left a comment here before, but I have to say, you’re just amazing!

By: ANNE

ANNE — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:31:16 +0000

I’ve been making pizza for years and everyone loves it. My problem repeatedly is that I cook in 500 degree oven on metal pizza pans with holes in them. I always have to cover the top of my pizza & put it back in because the bottom has not cooked enough! What am I doing wrong?

By: Laura D

Laura D — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:17:57 +0000

Hey, your site makes me want to run home and cook every workday! I’m not the greatest chef, but my mom is incredible. She makes pizza about once a month, and her best tip is: it doesn’t need to be a circle. Don’t kill yourself pulling and pinching the douch into a circle: just make it a square or any polygon, really.

And if you’re looking for a mouth watering pizza: cherry tomatoes and arugula, or boiled, sliced potatoes, red onion and rosemary. And about a cup of olive oil for each!

By: stephanie

stephanie — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:53:40 +0000

Hi Deb, I’ve never commented before but absolutely love your site and have tried (successfully!) quite a few of your recipes – I always look forward to seeing new recipes in google reader. One of my favorites is your super simple pizza dough – I was curious to know if you’ve ever added rosemary or any other herbs (or cheese) to it. Thanks!

By: deb

deb — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:00:26 +0000

Yes, actually there is an upper limit to parchment paper, which is usually 425 to 450. Which leads me to suspect — and not for the first time — that since I never had the scorching issue that our oven ran way cool and even when set to 500 was probably not anywhere near it!

By: Colleen

Colleen — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:40:03 +0000

Deb, I’m anxious to read your reply to Kate because I’ve had exactly the same problem with parchment. Tomorrow I plan to try someone’s suggestion to put the pan on the stone. I will try 450°F on one shelf up in an electric oven. Do you think lowest shelf is too close to the coils? Thanks for your help and this great tips.

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:05:26 +0000

Deb–I have a pizza stone, but no paddle, so i’ve always just cooked the pizza on a cookie sheet (we tried to move it using the cookie sheet several times… but gave up after burning ourselves :) ). I tried your idea of using parchment paper to transfer it from the cookie sheet to the stone, and then baking it on the parchment paper today…. and the parchment paper scorched and burned, and left me with a pizza that was really pretty on top, but scorched and burned on the bottom. I had the oven turned up all the way (to 500)… is there an upper temp limit when using parchment paper? Have you had this happen before? I was so excited about the parchment paper idea!–Kate

By: twoskinnyjenkins

twoskinnyjenkins — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:40:19 +0000

you have saved our Friday night pizza.

we (my husband and i) started ‘making’ pizza back in college every Friday night, originally with pre-made crust (as in boboli). then my husband stumbled upon your site and we made . since then we have been honing our pizza making skills, experimenting with different recipes and even starter dough. I think i have even mastered making wheat pizza that isn’t too dense and dry. Our ultimate goal is to get BIG bubbles in the crust. My theory is that the more watery the dough (like with the sourdough starter) and hot the oven, the more bubbles. I have yet to make a really bubbly crust, and blame our oven for not topping 550 degrees. Have you had any success at this?

By: Debbie

Debbie — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:27:42 +0000

I’ve really been enjoying your blog and it has inspired me to cook things that I might not have tried before. Thanks!

I tried out your refrigerator tip with the pizza dough and it unfortunately did not seem to work for me. I’m hoping that if I tell you what modifications I made to the recipe, that you might be able to figure out what happened so that it will work next time. For the dough, I used 1 cup of white whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour. I did have to add two tbsp of water to the dough as it seemed pretty dry…would that be because of the white whole wheat flour? I oiled the bowl and plastic wrap with cooking spray and let the dough sit in the refrigerator for at least 11 hours.

Lastly, your directions say that once the dough from the refrigerator has risen, to deflate it. Is it necessary to then let it sit for another 15-20 minutes under plastic wrap?

Since it didn’t rise, I am going to try your tip of putting it in the oven. The lowest temp on my oven is 170 so hopefully, that won’t hurt it.

This is my first time making pizza dough…Thanks in advance for your help.

By: deb

deb — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:04:21 +0000

You can, but it a) is bad for your knife’s blade and b) will make your stone messy, and you really want to avoid getting it wet, if you can. If you do get it wet, definitely don’t soap it and make sure it dries at least overnight before you use it again.

So yes, in short, definitely easier to cut the pizza on a different surface.