Proofing can be one of the trickiest steps to nail down when it comes to making your own dough. Temperature is one of the most important factors to consider. When possible, we prefer to cold-proof pizza dough. This technique, which involves refrigerating the dough for an extended period, offers not just convenience but also improved flavor. If you have the time, slowing down fermentation will actually help you gain greater control over your dough’s schedule and the ultimate taste of your crust.
Cold-proofing takes anywhere from 24 to 96 hours. It results in dough that’s not only easier to handle but also remarkably flavorful. Whether you’re using levain or a combination of commercial yeast and levain, this method works wonders. It’s essential to note that it might not be ideal for all dough types. For instance, we steer clear of cold-proofing for our pan-baked doughs as it can result in reduced volume. Remember, most refrigerators maintain temperatures of 0.5–4.4°C / 33–40°F, but for optimal results, adjust temp to about 4°C / 39°F.
Interestingly, Neapolitan pizza takes a different approach. In Naples, they proof their dough at room temperature year-round. Some adjust the yeast amount based on the season, while others resort to altering the salt content, which can lead to seasonally varying tastes. Conversely, in most parts of the world, cold-proofing for 24–48 hours is the norm. To cater to diverse preferences, we provide Neapolitan pizza dough recipes with both ambient and cold-proofing options in Modernist Pizza.
For those considering extending the cold-proofing period, especially if you’re not using malted flours, we recommend adding diastatic malt powder (DMP)* when you initially mix your dough. DMP compensates for the enzyme deficiency in the flour, which can adversely affect fermentation and crust color. This is especially crucial when there’s a high percentage of fermented flour. DMP boosts enzyme activity, starch degradation, and sugar production, resulting in that perfect browning we all desire. Pure amylase can also be used as an alternative and is readily available at beer-supply stores.
Cold-proofing can elevate your pizza game to new heights. Whether you’re a fan of thin-crust, New York, artisan, or even deep-dish pizza, this method is a game changer. Experiment, explore, and savor the remarkable flavors that emerge when you let time and temperature work their magic on your pizza dough.
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR DOUGH FOR COLD-PROOFING
Pre-shape the dough balls and place them in a stackable tub or plastic sheet pan. Make sure to space them out evenly into a grid. Give them room so they don’t proof into each other too much.
Lightly mist the surface of the dough balls with water.
If in stackable tubs, go ahead and stack another tub on top. If using a sheet pan, cover the pan with plastic wrap or a tarp.
Refrigerate.
For thin-crust, Brazilian thin-crust, and deep-dish pizza dough, we recommend 24-hour cold-proofing.
For Neapolitan, New York, and artisan pizza dough, we recommend 48-hour cold proofing.
We don’t recommend cold-proofing our focaccia or high-hydration al taglio pizza doughs.
We also recommend tempering cold-proofed dough for 2 hours (or however long it takes for the dough to come up to 13°C / 55°F) before baking it.
*Diastatic malt powder can be purchased online or at some grocery stores.
If you’re a pizza enthusiast, you know that achieving the perfect crust is an art. That’s especially true when it comes to the handling and shaping of your pizza dough. A supple, extensible dough is easier to shape or stretch to fit a pan. But some doughs tear or break so easily that they seem actively stubborn.
Here are two ways to make your dough stretchier, either by increasing hydration or using a conditioning ingredient (or dough relaxer) that will make the dough more extensible. Both approaches weaken gluten, but each does so in a different way. Let’s consider the hydration strategy first.
Option 1: Increasing Hydration for Stretchier Dough
One approach to make your dough more extensible is to increase its hydration. Simply put, adding more water to your dough recipe can strengthen the gluten network up to a certain point. Beyond that threshold, which depends on the flour’s gluten-forming protein content and other variables, excess moisture can flood the proteins and hinder the formation of long gluten chains. As a result, high-hydration doughs become far more relaxed and extensible than drier doughs.
However, there’s a trade-off. While increasing hydration can improve stretchiness, it can also make your dough sticky and challenging to handle. Dealing with high-hydration doughs that cling to your work surface and fingers can be frustrating. That’s why we’re happy to present an alternative solution.
Option 2: Weakening Gluten with Ingredients
The second option for enhancing your dough’s stretchiness involves weakening the gluten. This is typically achieved by adding ingredients like eggs and fats to the dough. These components limit the length of the gluten chains, making the dough more extensible. Unfortunately, most pizza doughs don’t contain eggs or use only minimal amounts of fats, which might not have a significant impact on dough extensibility.
However, there is another method to achieve this without altering the dough’s basic ingredients. Enter dough relaxers, also known as reducing agents. These additives can help your dough relax and stretch, making it more manageable. In our experiments, ingredients such as meat tenderizer, bromelain (enzyme found in pineapple),* and papain (fruit protease enzymes) have proven effective in improving dough extensibility. Meat tenderizers, in particular, work surprisingly well for dough. They function like chemical cleavers, cutting long strands of gluten into shorter pieces by breaking certain bonds between protein molecules. While this process is temporary, it results in a more flexible gluten network that promotes the growth of larger gas bubbles, giving your crust that sought-after light-and-airy texture.
Another option is deactivated yeast, which becomes accessible through the deactivation process. This also happens when yeast is frozen, which is why freezing baked pizza is preferred over freezing pizza dough for long-term storage.
*Bromelain can be found in drugstores, some grocery stores, and online, often in the form of a supplement.
Using Fruit Juice as a Dough Relaxer
If you’re considering using dough relaxers, you might encounter challenges when it comes to sourcing purified versions of protease enzymes as a noncommercial dough maker. While fruit juices can serve as a wonderful alternative, they come with their own set of considerations.
First, some fruit juices are so potent that they are practical only when making large batches of dough—even just one drop more can be too much in a smaller recipe. Second, the enzyme content in fruits can vary significantly, as it depends on the fruit’s ripeness. This means you may need to experiment to determine how much enzyme a particular fruit contains. Using fresh fruit juice is essential since canned and bottled juices deactivate the protease enzymes. Fortunately, only a small amount of juice, extracted from a chunk or two of fruit, is usually sufficient for your pizza dough needs.
Our Favorite Dough Relaxers
To address the challenge of shaping pizza dough, we tested various dough relaxers to find the sweet spot where the dough was both malleable enough to shape and strong enough to bake as pizza. Dough relaxers can be divided into natural (unpurified) and purified types. The latter is preferred for their consistency and precision.
While we wouldn’t recommend using dough relaxers for rye and whole wheat pizza doughs, we found several options that worked wonders for different types of pizza dough:
Meat tenderizer—This made a significant difference in Neapolitan pizza dough, making it easier to shape consistently.
Bromelain—A proteolytic enzyme found in pineapple, bromelain worked well with high-hydration al taglio dough, making it easier to extend to the sides of the pan.
Fruit protease enzymes—Fruit juices, such as kiwi, can be used as a delivery vehicle for protease enzymes, though their potency can vary. Experimentation may be required to determine the optimal amount for your dough.
You can find a more in-depth recommendation in Modernist Pizza, vol. 1, page 327.
It’s worth noting that the influence of dough relaxers on focaccia and New York square pizzas was minimal, and the final baked results were similar to the original recipe. For thin-crust pizzas and Detroit-style pizza, using relaxers is optional. And for deep-dish pizza dough, it typically rolls out easily without the need for relaxers.
In conclusion, improving your dough handling and shaping skills is essential for achieving the perfect pizza crust. Experiment with hydration levels and consider using dough relaxers to strike the right balance between strength and flexibility in your dough. With the right techniques and additives, you’ll be well on your way to creating the pizza of your dreams.
Flour is the fundamental building block of bread and pizza dough. At its most basic, flour is just pulverized grain. Recent research suggests that it may have been used for food since the Paleolithic Period! Flour is an ingredient far more complex than it may appear, made up of starch, protein, water, fats, and enzymes. There are many kinds of flour, made from wheat, almond, and other ingredients.
In terms of all-around performance, wheat is the best flour for bread and pizza dough. Its high-gluten content gives the dough structure; it has a distinctive flavor profile and the right starch for active fermentation. Wheat grain is made of three main parts: germ, bran, and endosperm. The vast majority of flour on the market is made from the endosperm, which is softer and whiter than the other two parts. Whole-grain flour is made with bran and germ as well.
The label on a bag of flour can include a lot of terms. Flour type (think bread flour, all-purpose flour, etc.) is most common among those terms, which may also include added ingredients and marketing buzzwords. The type of flour on the label will give you a rough approximation of a flour’s protein count—and we do mean rough. The protein content can vary wildly from brand to brand, so be sure to check the label.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common flour types to help you decide which is right for the type of dough that you’re making.
00 flour: Using 00 flour for pizza is popular, and we recommend it for our Neapolitan pizza. This Italian classification system establishes a minimum protein content for each grade: Tipo 00: ≥9%, Tipo 0: ≥11%, Tipo 1: ≥12%, Tipo 2: ≥12%, Integral: ≥12%
High-gluten bread flour: With 13% protein or more, this will make an even stronger dough than bread flour. It’s particularly good for breads and doughs mostly leavened with commercial yeast—like pizza dough, French Lean Bread, and bagels—as well as breads that require structure (such as enriched doughs, like Sablée Brioche).
AP flour: The protein content of all-purpose flour can vary from brand to brand; generally it’s 10%–11%. It’s not necessarily good for all purposes. In France, the classic baguette is traditionally made with all-purpose types of flours, and we like it for our thin-crust and deep-dish pizza doughs. Because protein content can vary wildly, we recommend making sure you know the protein content of your AP flour before making bread or pizza dough with it.
Pastry flour: As its name states, this flour is intended for pastry preparations, in which a low-gluten percentage is desired—for example, cookies, muffins, and pound cakes in which a short crumb versus a chewy crumb is the goal. We use it in combination with strong flours to make dough softer and easier to use (for stretching and shaping). We also use it in our pork cheek hum bao recipe. Its protein content is around 9%.
Cake flour: Typically under 9% protein, cake flour is most commonly used in very delicate baked-good preparations, such as sponge cakes, because it produces a crumbly texture that is uniform and fine. We found blending cake flour with bread flour works well for some of our thin-crust pizza doughs, such as the Brazilian Thin Crust.
Self-rising flour: This type of flour is not meant for yeast-raised breads or pizza doughs. You can make your own self-rising flour by combining any flour with 3% of its weight in baking powder. The protein content is usually around 8.5%.
You can learn much more about flour in Modernist Bread at Home, Modernist Bread, and Modernist Pizza. Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media for more Modernist Cuisine techniques, recipes, and announcements.
You can make pizza without cheese. You can make it without toppings. But to many, pizza is not pizza without some kind of sauce on top, which is why learning to improve your tomato sauce can seriously elevate your pizza. Here, you’ll discover quick and easy ways to elevate the flavor profiles of your tomato pizza sauces, whether you’re starting from scratch or want to punch up store-bought options.
The role of sauce in pizza making extends beyond its general culinary purposes of adding moisture and flavor. The nature of the sauce—including its liquid content, placement on the dough or around the toppings, and when it’s added to the pizza—can significantly influence the final outcome of both the pizza and its toppings.
For instance, sauce plays a protective role for the center of thin-crust and medium-crust pizzas, preventing their expansion and bubbling during baking. It also acts as a heat sink, its temperature limited to 100°C / 212°F until all water evaporates. This property shields delicate toppings from the oven’s high heat, making it a practical choice to cover ingredients like clams before baking.
The sauce’s liquid content is a key factor linked to pizza type, affecting baking time and temperature. Neapolitan pizza, baked at extreme heat, features a wet sauce that rapidly evaporates, forming a smooth, pulpy topping by the end of baking. On the other end, New York pizza requires a less watery sauce to avoid sogginess, given its lower temp and longer baking process. Temperature is also vital during saucing; applying cold sauce to dough can lower its temperature and affect baking time, potentially leading to issues like a gel layer. Room-temperature tempering for two hours is advised, while in specific cases like Detroit-style and deep-dish pizzas, heated sauce application post-baking is preferred. In essence, the intricate interplay between sauce consistency, temperature, and pizza type highlights how sauces on pizzas go beyond conventional culinary roles, acting as essential elements in achieving diverse textures and flavors across various pizza styles.
IMPROVING YOUR PIZZA SAUCE
Although there are many kinds of pizza sauce, the most common kind is tomato, which is what we’ll be focusing on in this post.
Pizzaioli commonly equate sauce with tomatoes, linking the strength of the sauce to the quality of the tomato. Chefs approach sauce differently, believing in enhancing flavors and equilibrium by introducing diverse elements to their sauces—a culinary dichotomy evident in Neapolitan pizza makers versus pasta chefs who create intricate sauces. The former uses canned, crushed tomatoes, while the latter create elaborate concoctions from many ingredients. One school of thought advocates adjusting sauces with salt, sugar, or acids in order to maintain consistency, while the other says to only use top-tier tomatoes. But it’s not always possible to use fresh ingredients all year round, which is why we think it’s important to know what ingredients to use to improve your tomato sauces.
Tomato sauce usually has some general characteristics: acid, sweetness, and umami (savoriness). These characteristics can be bumped up or, depending on the application, used to correct a flaw or enhance flavors to get a particular result. You can view it as adjusting to improve a sauce that isn’t perfect or as a chance to make your own creation.
Even though tomatoes have a good amount of naturally occurring umami in them, they can be lacking in flavor, especially if they are out of season or were harvested when they were not quite ripe. We typically recommend that you season your sauce with salt and/or dried oregano, but you can also attain some complex flavor profiles with other flavorings. Add the following (either on their own or in combination; if using a combination, don’t use as much as we recommend for a single addition). For example, if there are two additions, divide the amount for each by two; if there are three additions, divide by three, and so on.
IMPROVING ACIDITY
Most tomato sauces are somewhat acidic, but sometimes they can be flat. Use these ingredients to liven up your tomato sauce (adding salt helps too). Try 1% to 2% of
vinegar (white, champagne, red wine, white wine, and/or balsamic),
lime juice, or
lemon juice.
UMAMI INGREDIENTS
0.4%–0.6% MSG: There is an assumption surrounding MSG that it’s unsafe, but we can assure you this is false. In fact, MSG is a principal ingredient in tomatoes.
1.5%–2.5% anchovy oil: The more you add, the more anchovy-like the sauce will get. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you.
1%–2% mushroom powder: We recommend shiitake or porcini. You won’t taste the mushrooms, but they will contribute a savory note.
0.5%–1% soy sauce: Use sparingly.
2%–3% Worcestershire sauce: Use sparingly.
2%–3% fish sauce: Use sparingly.
BOOSTING THE TOMATO FLAVOR
7–8 tomato leaves per kilo: Tomato leaves in small amounts can provide a very intense tomato taste. Some people believe that they are poisonous, but we can assure you they are not. Stir into the sauce and allow to sit for at least 3–4 hours to flavor.
8%–10% tomato paste: Even the smallest amount of tomato paste is typically too much for most preparations. Use what you need, and freeze the rest flat in a zip-top bag so that you can break off pieces of it as you need it.
3%–4% freeze-dried tomatoes: If you cannot find these, use sun-dried tomatoes, which have a slightly different taste and texture, but will add the desired tomato flavor.
SWEETENING INGREDIENTS
Try any of these ingredients at 1%–4%. This percentage is wide because it is up to you how much to use, whether you want to sweeten the sauce or tame its acidity. Add 1 gram or 1/4 teaspoon at a time and taste:
sugar,
agave syrup, or
honey, or hot honey.
COMPLEMENTARY FLAVORS
A1 steak sauce as needed. While you don’t necessarily want the pizza sauce to taste like steak sauce, A1 and other steak sauces have flavoring ingredients that work really well with pizza sauce, such as vinegar, tomato puree, garlic, onions, and celery seed.
5–6 fresh basil leaves per kilo
Spicy ingredients (crushed red pepper flakes, commercial hot sauces, fresh chilis, dried chilis, chipotle peppers, cayenne, yuzu kosho, gochujang, sriracha)
Our team would love to see your improved sauces and the pizzas you’ve created, so please tag us in your social media posts if you end up experimenting with these techniques.
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It’s summertime—the weather is warm and you want to cook outside, whether it’s at the park or in your own backyard. Did you know that making pizza on a charcoal or gas grill is possible? We love grilling, which is why we decided to perfect this technique for Modernist Pizza. As it turns out, a grill is a fun (and an impressive) alternative for making homemade pizza.
In this post, we detail everything you need to know when it comes to making pizza in the great outdoors: the tools you’ll need, the pizza styles that work best on a grill, and step-by-step instructions so that you can master the technique. If you have a portable outdoor pizza oven, we’ve got you covered. We include our favorite tips and tricks for seamlessly using these ovens as well.
Grilling Pizza
There are some limits when it comes to grilling pizza, and not all recipes are up to the task. We tested a number of doughs while working on Modernist Pizza to see which cook best on a grill. Thin-crust, Neapolitan, New York, and artisan recipes grill well, but we recommend using a gas grill for these options. You can find our Thin-Crust recipe here.
Our favorite grilling recipe is the Brazilian Thin-Crust pizza dough, which you can find on page 114 of the book. This pizza can be grilled on both a charcoal and gas stove, can be rolled out very thin, is easy to handle, and gets nicely crisp after grilling. If you do make this pizza, we recommend replacing the flour in the recipe with high-gluten flour. We also recommend following the master recipe just until it’s time to divide it. At that point, divide the dough into 150 g pieces and shape them into balls before proofing for the recommended time.
Here are a few tips for getting started:
Beforehand, keep your sauce, cheese, and other toppings at room temperature so that they get hot/melt faster.
Don’t overcrowd the pizza with toppings.
Don’t grill pizza side by side with meat or anything that might cause flare-ups.
If you’re traveling beyond your backyard, keep your portioned dough in a cooler in a lightly oiled plastic container. Even though we don’t recommend oiling all the pizza dough when you are working in a kitchen, we do in this case because it makes it much easier to transport and use. Take the dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings out of the cooler 2 hours before you want to eat (if it’s hot out, the dough might need less time to proof).
Bring a cutting board 30–33 cm / 12–13 in with you, for both assembling the pizza and cutting it after it is baked. (You can assemble the pizza on the peel, but you must be quick so it doesn’t stick.)
Grilling Pizza on a Charcoal Grill
Our recommendation: Try the Brazilian Thin-Crust Pizza.
The Tools You’ll Need:
A charcoal grill and coals
Rolling pin
Olive oil spray
Pre-portioned dough in a cooler in a lightly oiled plastic container
Sauce, cheese, and toppings
Peel
Cutting board
How to Grill Pizza on a Charcoal Grill:
1. Prepare a charcoal grill. Once the coals are ready, move them so they’re on only half the grill. You’re aiming for temperatures above 480°C / 900°F on the charcoal side and about 205°C / 400°F on the non-charcoal side.
2. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin to an oval/rectangular shape. It should be 30–35 cm long by 10–15 cm wide by 6 mm thick.
3. Dock the dough (3:12), and spray the surface with olive oil.
4. Place the dough on the non-charcoal side of the grill. Close the lid and cook for 45 sec–1 min.
5. Remove the dough from the grill.
6. Flip the dough over so that the back side is facing up and apply the sauce, cheese, and toppings.
7. Place the topped pizza back on the grill, off-center toward the charcoal side.
8. Keeping the lid up, cook for 1 min, then rotate the pizza 180° and cook for 1 min more. If the toppings still need additional time, move the pizza to the cooler side and close the grill lid for no more than 30 sec at a time.
9. Remove the pizza from the grill using a peel.
Grilling Pizza on a Gas Grill
Our recommendation: Try our Brazilian thin-crust, thin-crust, Neapolitan, New York, and artisan dough recipes. We use thin-crust pizza in these instructions.
The Tools You’ll Need:
A gas grill and gas-grill supplies
Olive oil spray
Preportioned dough in a cooler in a lightly oiled plastic container
Sauce, cheese, and toppings
Peel
Cutting board
How to Grill Pizza on a Gas Grill:
1. Prepare a gas grill by turning all heat settings to high.
2. Once the grill has reached 370–425°C / 700–800°F, turn off one side of the grill and keep the other side on high heat.
3. Shape the dough according to its master recipe. Dock the dough, and spray the surface with olive oil.
4. Place the dough oiled side down on the high-heat side of the grill and cook for 1 min. While the pizza is cooking, spray the top surface with olive oil.
5. Flip the dough over and cook for 1 min.
6. Remove the dough from the grill and apply the sauce, cheese, and toppings.
7. Place the topped pizza on the nonheated side of the grill. Close the lid. Cook for 6 min, checking the pizza every 2 min.
8. If the pizza still feels a little flabby after 6 min, move to the high-heat side for an additional 30–90 sec, keeping the grill lid up to crisp the pizza.
9. Remove the pizza from the grill using a peel.
Baking Pizza on a Portable Ovens
If you want to step up your car-camping game or simply love making pizza al fresco, there is a class of portable ovens that will allow you to do just that. While some of these pizza ovens offer the option of heating with wood chips, we prefer to use propane because it gets hotter and maintains a more consistent temperature.
Our tips for grilling pizza apply to outdoor pizza ovens as well: keep your portioned dough in a cooler in an oiled container if you’re traveling beyond your backyard, temp all of the components 2 hours before baking, and have a cutting board on hand for assembling your pizza.
When you are done baking pizzas, be sure that the oven is completely cool before putting it away. The propane tank should be shut off and disconnected. If you used wood chips, they need to be completely extinguished and disposed of responsibly.
The Tools You’ll Need:
A portable oven
Pre-portioned dough in a cooler in a lightly oiled plastic container
Sauce, cheese, and toppings
Peel
Cutting board
Optional pizza screen
How to Use a Portable Oven:
1. Quickly assemble the pizza on the peel so that it doesn’t stick. Reshape the pizza, if necessary, before loading it into the oven. (You can also use a pizza screen to make loading the pizza into the oven easier. Be sure to coat the screen with a spray oil before using. Keep the pizza on the screen the entire time that it bakes, and rotate it. You can also use parchment paper instead of the screen, but not if you are using wood chips to heat the oven, because it will burn.)
2. Load the pizza into the oven.
3. Once the rim starts to blister and brown, rotate the pizza.
4. Spin the pizza as needed to ensure that it bakes evenly.
Our team would love to see your outdoor adventures, so please tag us in your social media posts if you end up taking your cooking outside this summer.
Are you interested in learning more Modernist Cuisine tips and tricks? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media for more techniques, recipes, and announcements.
The best way to eat pizza is with others, which is one of the reasons pizza parties are universally beloved. Making pizza for a crowd, however, can present some logistical challenges, especially if you are only able to make one pizza at a time. These tips and tricks (the results of our team’s extensive experiments), along with a bit of planning, will help you to keep the pizzas coming and ultimately keep the crowd happy.
Choosing the Right Pizza Style
Serving at a party comes with some risks, depending on the type of pizza that you choose to serve. It can be a very fun occasion, but the key is to plan it correctly and choose the right pizzas. Your guests want to see you (presumably!), so it’s not ideal to be stuck in the kitchen the whole time. If you have an outdoor wood-fired or propane-fueled oven, you can bake pizzas while your guests hang out around you or even help. Indoors, the spaces are tighter, the ovens are generally smaller, and you can bake only so many pizzas at a time.
If you go with a Neapolitan or artisan pizza, you’ll be able to serve only one guest at a time, you’ll need a special oven to do the job right, and it’ll require someone with a high level of expertise to make the pizza. And this assumes that you are making the pizzas a la minute in front of the guests because these styles of pizzas won’t hold for longer than a few minutes. You could opt to make larger New York pizzas that will feed multiple people and reheat well (this is, after all, the business model for countless slice shops across the United States). But we don’t think that it’s the absolute best solution.
Our recommended solution is to choose to make pizzas that reheat very well and can be made well in advance: Detroit-Style Pizza, New York Square Pizza, or Al Taglio Pizza. You can make the pizza crusts ahead of time, cool them down, wrap them in plastic wrap, and freeze them for up to 6 months. In the case of catering, you can bake them offsite, freeze them (if you’d like), and transport them to the event. You don’t even need to defrost them. You can reheat whole pans or slices. You can slice ahead of time too.
Consider having a toppings station as well. Your guests can either tell the event staff what they want on their pizzas or, if you are entertaining at home, they can build their own pizzas using the naked prebaked pizzas. This will let you spend less time alone in the kitchen and more time with your guests.
Prebaking Pizza
The term “parbaking” is used a lot in the baking industry. It’s a process that involves baking bread until it’s about 90% done, allowing it to cool, then finishing the baking later. The initial baking period is enough to deactivate the yeasts and enzymes and set the structure of the crust and crumb (so the loaf can maintain its shape as it cools), but not enough to fully brown the crust.
But what about parbaking pizza? Does it deliver the same glorious results that you get when you bake your pizza normally? In some cases, it does work well. For example, if you are selling frozen pizza or if you are a caterer and you have an off-site event, you can parbake your pizzas two-thirds to three-quarters of the way, freeze them, and then finish baking them later. We also found that parbaking works well for thin-crust pizzas and medium-crust pizzas (especially if you’re freezing them).
We decided to test another technique that lets you do part of the work in advance: prebaking. In prebaking, the pizza is cooked all the way through and can be reheated later. If you’re in the pizza business—or if you’re throwing a pizza party at home—the ability to prebake can help organize the workflow because you do most of the baking ahead of time.
Prebaking is part of the standard process when you’re making a New York square pizza. This pizza is baked and cooled, then sauced and topped later if you are using it as the foundation of a pizza. Prebaking is how we make the pizza gourmet style. Al taglio pizzas are also prebaked, sometimes with sauce and sometimes just the dough alone. Then they’re cooled, and additional toppings can be added later and the pizza can be heated again in the oven. The same can be done for Detroit-style pizzas.
We wondered if prebaking could streamline the process for other kinds of pizza, too. The answer is yes—for some styles of pizza. You may, however, prebake thin-crust and medium-crust pizzas for the purpose of freezing. In those cases, the pizzas are prebaked with sauce and cooled. We recommend adding cheese just before baking. (Adding the cheese before baking on a prebaked pizza will influence the cheese’s complex melt rheology and textural attributes.) When you’re ready to eat, you don’t even need to defrost; you can bake it straight from its frozen form.
For a few pizza styles, we found another big benefit of prebaking: it helps eliminate the gel layer, a pale, gooey layer of underbaked dough. We found that by prebaking the dough alone, the gel layer can be eliminated. Sauce, cheese, and toppings are added later, then the pizza is reheated.
Reheating Pizza
All styles of pizza go through a short, intense, high-temperature bake (some higher than others). As such, the pizza changes dramatically both during and after baking. When it comes to reheating pizza, the main objective in general is to reheat the base, sauce, cheese, and toppings without letting anything burn or dry out like a crouton. Some staling may have occurred, as often happens when baked dough is refrigerated, but fortunately, reheating the pizza to the correct temperature (between 79.5°C and 85°C /175°F and 185°F) will make the staling less noticeable.
One of the most common ways to reheat pizza is in the microwave, but we don’t recommend it because your pizza will reheat unevenly and become gummy and unpalatable. For the thicker-crust pizzas that we recommend for a crowd, reheat them in an oven but be careful because the exposed crust may dry out and become too crunchy. To avoid this, don’t reheat the pizzas longer than recommended, reheat slices side by side so the exposed crust is protected, and cradle the pizza in aluminum foil to protect the exposed crust while keeping the surface exposed to the hot air. The cradle should cover up only the exposed crust areas and not the surface or the rim crust that is not exposed. Doing so prevents the crust from drying out; the only caveat is that reheating will take a few minutes longer (about 1–3 minutes).
Make sure to preheat your oven fully. A baking steel and stone can be used interchangeably for reheating. A baking steel will take slightly longer to preheat, which gives the stone a small advantage for reheating. In order to heat a baking steel or stone in a home oven, it is best to use the broiler to heat it up fast. Once the broiler has heated the baking steel or stone, switch the oven to regular heat (205–260°C / 400–500°F) to reheat the pizza. While a baking steel is better for baking pizzas than a baking stone, for reheating purposes they work very much the same.
How to Make Pizza for a Crowd
Once the pizzas have been baked and cooled, cut them into portions using a serrated knife.
2. Place the sliced pizzas back in their baking pans, cover, and set aside until you’re ready to reheat.
3. About 1 h before you’re ready to serve the pizzas, place one or ideally two baking stones or baking steels stacked in the oven. Preheat the oven to 230°C / 450°F.
4. To reheat the pizzas, uncover them and simply slide the pans onto the hot baking steels or baking stones. They’ll take 5–7 min to reheat and recrisp the bottom.
5. For Detroit-style pizza, apply the hot tomato sauce over each hot slice, plus any other post-bake toppings. For al taglio pizza, apply any heat-sensitive toppings, like arugula, blue cheese, or tapenade, after baking.
Whether you’re gearing up to make pizza or have someone special in your life that is, we’re here to help. We’ve put together this handy guide to essential pizza-making tools and equipment to help you stock up. This list features some of our favorite basic items that you’ll find in any well-stocked pizzeria as well as gear that you’ll want to build out your home setup. Many of these tools are inexpensive, but there are also a few splurges on the list, which we think are wise investments.
Digital Scale
We recommend this emphatically: use a scale not measuring spoons. Measuring ingredients by weight, rather than volume, will make a huge difference in your results. For general use, the scale should measure single-gram increments. Additionally, it’s useful to have a precision scale for weighing small quantities, such as the 0.06 g of yeast called for in one of our preferments. You’ll find plenty of low-cost choices on the market that meet these requirements.
A digital probe version is best. Home pizza makers will also want an oven thermometer. You can also get a combination timer / probe thermometer and take care of two helpful tools in one.
In addition to telling you when to remove your pizza from the oven, digital timers will help you keep track of dough as it ferments and proofs, especially when you’re managing several doughs and kitchen tasks at a time. Timers should be easy to use, with loud alarms that can be heard across a noisy kitchen or from another room. Have several basic timers on hand for juggling tasks.
Storage is an important consideration, and clear plastic tubs are the storage bins of choice. Up for almost any stowage task, these bins come in a range of sizes; they make it easy to keep an eye on the contents inside; and they stack much like nesting dolls when they aren’t being used. Long rectangular storage boxes can be used to hold fermenting dough, while preferments, ingredients, and old dough are often stored in square versions. Tall tubs make great vessels when weighing large quantities of water—some can even transform into water bath containers when cooking sous vide. Make sure the bins have airtight lids. We use the Cambro brand, which is so prevalent in professional kitchens that “Cambro” has become almost a generic term for tubs.
We use an electric mixer for all of the pizza doughs in Modernist Pizza. You can certainly mix by hand, but this requires more time and physical effort. We highly recommend electric mixers since most of the doughs require mixing to full gluten development. . A stand mixer can be a big investment, so look for models that have a strong motor, which is important for making drier doughs, and a broad range of speed settings, from very slow to very fast.
Use a sharp metal version for cleanly cutting dough, lifting sticky dough, and scraping dough residue off the worktable. Plastic ones are acceptable but are generally thicker, which can sometimes be a drawback. There’s a narrow bench knife we like specifically for pizza because it’s also perfect for when we need to lift a ball of dough after fermenting. This bench knife does a much better job than the wider ones. This tool is so practical that some pizzerias use it to cut garlic.
Metal peels are more suitable than wooden ones for flatbreads and pizzas because they’re thinner and can easily slide under the crusts. Perforated metal peels have the advantage that any excess flour used for dusting the dough will fall through. (Baking excess flour onto a pizza dough is undesirable because it can burn.)
Although not as commonly used as peels in pizzerias, pizza screens consist of a fine wire mesh surrounded by a metal ring. They come in a number of different diameters, from 20 cm / 8 in to 60 cm / 24 in. Depending on your perspective, using a screen is either a godsend or it’s cheating. Screens are useful if you don’t have experience making pizza, because you can consistently shape a round pizza that is the exact size that you need. We find screens useful for certain styles of pizza and types of ovens, including impinger and home ovens.
We always spray the screens with oil just before placing the dough on top, then apply the sauce, cheese, and toppings as needed. The screen makes it easy to move the pizza from worktable to oven. For home pizza makers, it also helps to assemble the pizza on the screen and then place it on a baking steel or stone so that you don’t have to worry about the pizza sticking to a peel when you are loading it into the oven.
For some styles, making something that looks and tastes like the real deal can hinge on the pan. While you could technically bake all the pizzas in this book on an aluminum sheet pan, specialized pans produce markedly better results. Some have reinforced frames that keep them from warping in the oven or cured surfaces to prevent the pizza from sticking. Others are made of thicker, denser metal that produces a crispier base.
This is used to spoon sauce onto pizza dough and to spread it evenly. Many pizzerias know how many “spoonfuls” is the right amount for each pizza. We like a spoon with a flat base for spreading.
Making your own basic pizza sauces can be incredibly easy. While you can make them by hand-crushing tomatoes, we also like using a food mill. Tomatoes are passed through the mill to make sauce (try using one with a 8–10 mm / 0.31–0.39 in holes). We recommend one that is not so big that you end up with large tomato chunks in the sauce or so small that the seeds are left behind. Some models have interchangeable grates with different-sized holes that allow for different-textured sauces.
Some pizzerias use scissors instead of wheel cutters or mezzalunas. Scissors give pizza a clean cut and don’t squash the rim crust that you just worked so hard on. You can buy scissors specially made for cutting pizza, but any pair of heavy-duty, long, sharp scissors will do. Make sure they’re the kind that can be sharpened. Don’t use the hefty kitchen shears that are meant for cutting through chicken joints. For al taglio pizza, there are special scissors in which the bottom blade rests on a plastic base that keeps the scissors flat on the counter while cutting.
A steel or stone will help properly bake pizza in a home oven, combi oven, or convection oven. Baking steels work even better than stones for baking pizza. Thick baking steels hold their preheated temperature better than thin ones, but they also take longer to preheat and to recover from a drop in temperature. Our bottom-line conclusion: a dark (not shiny) steel plate 12 mm / ½ in thick produces the best crust, although it is staggeringly heavy. A steel plate 10 mm / 0.4 in thick also works very well, is a lot more manageable, and preheats faster. For more even heat radiation, you can stack two together, but this is optional.
Docking evenly distributes a pattern of small holes across a dough’s surface and keeps it from puffing up significantly. We use a rolling docker, which is more of a speciality tool, but a fork or the tip of a skewer or knife is a handy alternative.
Use this to sweep debris, such as semolina, out of the oven. Sometimes a pizza bottom will rip, leaving a cheesy, saucy mess on your oven floor. When this happens, you’ll need a metal bristle brush.
There is a category of ovens that has less to do with specific temperature ranges—specialty ovens. These include countertop ovens that can be used to make pizzas at relatively high temperatures without having to invest in a gas-fired pizza oven or a pizza deck oven. If you are a pizza enthusiast and are looking for value in a home pizza oven, the Breville Crispy Crust Pizza Maker will produce great pizzas for the price. If you are really serious about making pizza at home, we definitely recommend the Smart Oven Pizzaiolo.
These ovens, which include the Gozney Roccbox and Ooni Koda and Karu pizza ovens, are the definition of portable. The Roccbox and certain Ooni ovens like the Karu 16 allow you to burn wood chips or use a propane tank for fuel. We prefer using propane because it produces a more consistent heat and gets hotter quicker than using wood chips.
The disadvantage of using gas rather than wood is that you have to cart around a propane tank if you are using the oven away from your home. Even so, it is one way to get a very good Neapolitan-style pizza at home. The fact that it can only be used outdoors may or may not bother you. These ovens are great for any sort of small-scale outdoor pizza baking, whether on the balcony of your apartment or camping in the wilderness. While you can bake only one pizza at a time, each one takes a mere 60–90 seconds to bake.
Pizza is one of the most beloved foods in the world—the whole month of October is even dedicated to it in the United States. This National Pizza Month, we couldn’t be more excited to release Modernist Pizza, which is now officially on sale. Some retailers are experiencing fulfillment delays, however orders placed through Modernist Cuisine Shop are shipping now.
Our story of pizza is told across three volumes plus a kitchen manual, comprising 1,708 pages. It is the culmination of exhaustive research, travel, and experiments to collect and advance the world’s knowledge of pizza. In Modernist Pizza, you’ll find 1,016 recipes for both traditional and innovative pizzas across the globe. The recipes, along with the techniques, were developed with both professional and home ovens and equipment in mind.
While conducting research for the book, our pizza travels took us all over the world. Given pizza’s global history, we wanted to communicate our story of pizza to as many people as possible. That’s why we’re thrilled to share that Modernist Pizza will be published in French, German, Italian, and Spanish in May 2022. We’ll announce a preorder date later this year.
We also have a lot of other exciting updates to share with you that coincide with the launch of Modernist Pizza. You can expect more to come from us in the following months, but for now we’re excited to share a new collaboration, photography series, and updates about Modernist Pizza Podcast.
A Pizza + Beer Collaboration with Stoup Brewing
Like us, we know a lot of people obsess over a fantastic pizza and beer pairing. Some foods and drink just go together. There’s pasta and wine, and there’s pizza and beer. We are incredibly excited to have partnered with local Seattle brewery Stoup Brewing to celebrate the launch of Modernist Pizza with a special beer release—the 00 Pilsner. Inspired by the 00 flour prized by pizzaioli, this beer is a dry-hopped Italian pilsner developed to pair well with pizza. The can design is a collaboration between our Modernist Cuisine team as well as the Stoup Brewing team and showcases a levitating photo of Neapolitan pizza from Modernist Pizza.
You can find the beer on tap at Stoup Brewing’s locations in Ballard and Kenmore. The limited-edition four-pack of 00 Pilsner 16-ounce cans sells for $13.99 and can be found at craft beer retailers around Seattle.
Modernist Pizza Podcast is Coming Soon
Shortly after our last book, Modernist Bread, was published in 2017, we launched Modernist BreadCrumbs podcast. We wanted another way for our readers and bread bakers to learn as much as they could about bread making and the science, history, and stories behind it. We’re thrilled to share that once again, we’ll be releasing a podcast to go along with our newest book, Modernist Pizza. We’re excited to be teaming up with Michael Harlan Turkell who produced Modernist BreadCrumbs and who will host Modernist Pizza Podcast. Each episode of Modernist Pizza Podcast will feature in-depth interviews with Nathan, head chef Francisco Migoya, and some of the many people who are working to shape pizza’s future. The first of eight episodes will debut at the end of October with new episodes airing each week.
Modernist Pizza Podcast has some amazing sponsors including Ooni, Miyokos Creamery, King Arthur Baking, Banza, Baking Steel, and Gustiamo. It will be available for listening online and on platforms including Stitcher, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. We’re also excited to partner with artist Jenny Acosta for the show’s artwork.
A New Pizza Photography Series
To coincide with the launch of the book, a collection of 10 pizza-centric photos from Modernist Pizza is now available for purchase at Modernist Cuisine Gallery by Nathan Myhrvold. Each photograph showcases a different aspect related to pizza, whether it’s the location of a top pizza destination featured in our world travel guide, a specific ingredient, or pizza shown in an imaginative setting. The photographs are available from our galleries in Las Vegas, New Orleans, La Jolla, and Seattle, which ship worldwide.
We have more upcoming pizza content and virtual events in the works. If you haven’t already, join our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more updates. And as always, we encourage you to share photos of your book and all of your pizza-making journeys by tagging your posts with #ModernistPizza.
Shortly after wrapping up Modernist Bread, we announced that the focus of our next single-subject book was going to be pizza—it was a secret that we didn’t want to sit on for long. Now we’re thrilled to share that Modernist Pizza will land on bookshelves October 5, 2021 and that you can preorder your copy now.
Beginning today, preorders for Modernist Pizza are available directly through the new Modernist Cuisine Shop, online retailers including Amazon.com, Phaidon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Bol.com, and Booktopia.com, and participating independent cookbook stores across the country. The set, which is housed in a red stainless-steel case, will retail for USD$425. It includes three hardcover volumes and a portable, spiral-bound recipe manual that contains all the recipes and reference tables in the book.
We’re excited to release this book at a time when pizza has never been more popular or more important. Modernist Pizza is the culmination of exhaustive research, travel, and experiments to collect and advance the world’s knowledge of pizza. Topping out at 35.5 pounds and over 1,700 pages, it’s safe to say that this is a pizza cookbook supreme. We’ve performed hundreds of experiments, traveled more than 100,000 miles to visit over 250 of the world’s top pizzerias, and consumed countless calories. There are deep dives into pizza’s history, evolution, and many global styles as well as its fundamentals: dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings. And it wouldn’t be a Modernist Cuisine book without plenty of scientific insights, gear guides, innovative techniques, surprising discoveries, and incredible recipes—1,016 to be exact. Here’s a preview of, what we hope will become, an indispensable resource for anyone who loves pizza.
A Taste of What You’ll Find in Modernist Pizza
We’ve loved making this book. First and foremost because pizza is undeniably delicious. Pizza was a compelling topic for us for a number of reasons. It’s multicultural, found in virtually every country around the world, and yet wherever pizza goes, it mutates and evolves into something local. Pizza is simultaneously the evolution of a 19th-century dish from Naples and a window into the culinary creativity of the people who modified the original pizzas into the many local styles we enjoy today.
Pizza may seem simple, but it’s highly technological and scientific. Making pizza is extremely technique-driven, where even the smallest variations in the method can affect the outcome. A tremendous amount of skill is involved, to the point that pizza making can be daunting to both beginners and professionals. On top of that, pizza has historically been a poorly documented cuisine, which is thanks, in part, to its humble origins on the streets of Naples.
As with our other books, we scoured the world to research the key aspects of pizza that we found relevant and interesting, studied until we understood all the techniques, and subjected everything to tests, including the flour brands that pizzaioli prized, the types of water they used (it turns out that this ingredient doesn’t make much of a difference), the brand of tomatoes that were prevalent and how they were grown, as well as the processes by which common pizza ingredients are made.
Our experiments also opened the door to many discoveries that affected how we made the components of pizza, from dough to the sauce and cheese. We were able to develop mixing and proofing techniques that dramatically reduce the time it typically takes to make Neapolitan and high-hydration al taglio pizza dough without compromising the quality. We list recommendations that will allow you to make multiple pizza styles from one dough. No matter how experienced a pizzaiolo is, there likely isn’t a single person who won’t be surprised by some of our findings.
We distilled our findings into three volumes. In the first volume, we share the history of pizza, the world of pizza at large, plus fundamentals to making pizza such as the ingredients that go into the dough and the role of heat in the pizza-making process. The chapters in volume 2 provide a comprehensive look at all the components of pizza—dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings—and present foundational recipes upon which the majority of our pizzas are built. The third and final volume is dedicated to both classic and innovative recipes for every pizza style we cover, including al taglio, Argentinean, bar/tavern, Brazilian thin-crust, deep-dish, Detroit, grandma/New York Square/Sicilian, Neapolitan, New York, New Haven, Old Forge, pizza fritta, and pizza gourmet. Volume 3 is also where you’ll find inventive flavor and topping combinations to help inspire your own pizza exploration.
Guides to Top Pizza Destinations
We’ve included something new in Modernist Pizza that we’ve never done before in any of our other books: we devoted an entire chapter to our pizza travels and created a global travel guide. We wanted to illustrate pizza’s wonderful diversity and show the many ways in which it’s enjoyed across the world. That is why pizza required us to travel even more than our other books did—our team visited over 250 pizzerias to learn local styles from some of the world’s best pizzaioli. The chapter was created to serve as a travelogue of sorts and to help give the full picture of pizza.
When we started visiting pizzerias, we wondered whether the pizzaioli would actually talk to us. It turned out they were incredibly helpful, especially in Italy. They were very candid about sharing their knowledge and techniques and even helped us review parts of the book. We spoke to visionaries such as Tony Gemignani, Enzo Coccia, Franco Pepe, Chris Bianco, Laura Meyer, Carlo Sammarco, Dan Richer, Sarah Minnick, and many more covered in this book, who are tossing pizza into the modern era.
We couldn’t go to every well-reviewed pizzeria everywhere, so think of our guide as a curated selection. It consists of the best pizzerias across Italy and the United States, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Tokyo. After Naples, which was a must-see since it’s where pizza was invented, we looked to important first-generation pizza cities like New York. Following that, we checked out travel spots known for a particular style like Chicago or Detroit. We also included other areas like Rome and Portland, to paint a picture of the pizza scenes there.
Countless times during our research, we were asked where the best pizza can be found. (We aren’t shy about suggesting there are several pizzerias in Naples that would immediately deserve one, two, and even three Michelin stars.) Ultimately, we hope that our travel chapter will be a good starting point for mapping out your own pizza journey to help answer that question for yourself.
More Pizza on the Horizon
One of our goals for this book was to make it accessible to many types of pizza makers, from professionals, including chefs and bakers, to beginners at home. That’s why we tested all our recipes in several different ovens and included recommendations in each recipe for which oven will work best. Our chefs developed loads of tips and tricks for making great pizza in a home oven. There really is something in Modernist Pizza for everyone—actually, there is a lot for everyone.
What makes pizza great isn’t any single ingredient. What makes it great is using good ingredients consistently, plus lots of skill and attention. If you’re a pizza fan, even if you have no intention of making pizza, this book will describe your favorite food in an incredible way. If you hanker to make pizza at home or are even slightly intrigued, we encourage you to take the plunge.
As the on-sale date for the book nears, we’ll be sharing more blog posts and details about what you can expect to find in each of the volumes. If you haven’t already, join our mailing list, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more updates.
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