i had not done pizza for a while. it's friday night, perfect time.
i have an electric oven and use the baking steel on the top rack. i preheat the oven at 550F for about one hour. i then open the oven door for about 30-60 seconds and then turn the broiler on. when the broiler kicks in i close the oven door. i have gotten the top of the baking steel almost up to 700F with this method. after 10 minutes i open the oven door until the broiler kicks in again and then put the pizza in. what i am not sure of is whether the broiler should be on (red) when i put the pizza in or not. anyway, with this set up i tried it with the broiler on.
i used the MCH recipe but i scale the recipe to 750 grams of 00 flour so i end up with four 310 grams balls. overnight in the fridge and then counter top.
i tend to have a problem with the pizza dough being too elastic. i modified a tip from the king arthur's website, where i put the pizza on top of plastic wrap and stretch the pizza dough to about 7 inch diameter. the plastic wrap keeps the pizza from pulling back. i left it covered like that to rest for about 1 hour or so. after that, it was so easy to hand stretch the pizza out.
the topping: brushed olive oil from the garlic confit, pieces of garlic confit, one thinly sliced jalapeno. fresh mozarella, grape tomatoes, and basil.
here is the pizza after being in the oven for 4 minutes and 30 seconds:
here is the crust:
two slices:
cross section:
thin crust with crunchy on the bottom and sides, slightly chewy on top. just the way i like it!
