Pizza @ Home

Pizza Dough Proofing

I love to eat pizza and I love to make pizza. I had to make my own pizza about 6 years ago because I found the local pizza scene in Singapore sorely lacking. Pizza Hut, Dominos, Pizza Rite and etc, in my opinion, are not pizzas.

I had done my annual trip back to Sydney in 2004 and had a great pizza at Mario's. The crust was light and airy, tasty, and had a crunch. The toppings were simple and did not overwhelm the crust. In short, it was a great pizza and a tough act to follow. Having eaten Mario's pizza, I just could not eat what was available in Singapore then.

However, as most home cooks know, pizza is pretty hard to replicate at home without blowing up your oven. Extremely high temperatures are required, 350 degrees celcius, so that the pizza crust can cook in 2 mins or less. The crust should rise quickly so that there are beautiful air bubbles in the crust, with a slightly charred pizza bottom. I had to make MANY pizzas at home before finally coming across Peter Reinhart's fantastic book American Pie which gave many tips and pointers. He suggested using a baking stone heated in the oven for an hour in order to get the nice charred crispy pizza bottom. Of course in Singapore, 6 years ago, I could not find such a stone. So I had to improvise and used a clay pot dish which was cheap (cost only $4) and was made of the same porous ceramic material. Peter Reinhart's book was also very informative about using a slow ferment method (i.e. in the fridge) to develop flavour in the crust. So that was what I did for the last 5 years, satisfying many people in the process.

That all changed this year when BH bought me the Heston Blumenthal's book, In Search of Perfection. In that book, we tried the Roast Beef Recipe (more on that in another post when I get my Dry Aging Technology Kit Woohoo!). But most recently, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try the pizza recipe. It is a little more complicated, as with most of Blumenthal's recipes, but well worth the effort. A pre-ferment was required and something called Malt Syrup was needed for both the pre-ferment and dough. I couldn't find Malt Syrup so I just used Maltose which I could find in local food stores.

Additionally, Blumenthal advises heating your cast iron pan over high heat for 20 mins then popping your pizza dough onto it, toppings and cheese and then cooking in preheated oven (highest temp-which is 250 degrees celcius for my home oven) for 90 secs.

I loved the result as did my guests (hence the lack of photographs). The crust was light, airy and had the slight crunch and as the dough had not been fermenting for too long (only the pre-ferment for flavour), you didn't get that yeasty smell and taste which can result from over-fermenting. The only problem I had was that the dough was a little dry. I shall add an extra gramme of water for the pre-ferment and dough the next time round.

I made a Rendang Pizza, Bacon and Cheese, and a Pork Vindaloo Pizza. Not exactly neapolitan but exactly the way I like it!