cracker pizza

sebastian_palmigiani_21610

i wanted to try making a cracker style pizza. a neapolitan style pizza is 1/8 of an inch thick. an america style pizza is 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. a cracker style pizza is 1/16 of an inch thick.

the challenge for cracker style is twofold: 1) getting to 1/16 inch thickness and 2) have the same thickness throughout the dough.

you do need to use a rolling pin for this. i used a 120 gr of dough rolled out to 12" diameter.

i decided to make a pesto margherita pizza with yellow and red cherry tomatoes and fresh mozarella. i put the mozarella slices in the freezer for about 5 minutes to slow down the melting of the cheese in the oven.

here is the pizza before putting it in the oven.

here is the pizza just after taking it out of the oven.

this cooked in my oven for 2.5 minutes at 550F using two baking steels, one for the top rack and the other for the bottom rack. after a certain time i would switch from one steel to the other which would have a fresher hot surface for baking the bottom. i also timed it to put the pizza on the top baking steel while the electrical broiler was on.

as you can see, the top left-middle corner is not as crispy as the bottom right. i was concerned that if kept it there longer that part of the pizza would become scorched. i need to work on having a consistent thickness throughout the pizza.

here is a side view of the crispy part of the pizza. when i think of cracker pizza this is what i have in mind.

here is the pizza cut in squares.

this was thin enough for cracker style pizza and it was crunchy and yet not dried out.

there were other pieces (the top left side of the pizza) which were thicker than this and not as crunchy. also, middle pieces of the pizza were not crunchy. working on having the same thickness throughout will remedy this.

sebastian_palmigiani_21610

i did another cracker pizza to apply what i learned. this pizza had mushroom, guyere cheese (wanted to use a dry cheese), and chive.

i made sure that the dough was uniformly thin. then put some light olive oil and mushroom salt on top. i put it in the oven on top rack under the broiler for 75 seconds. then i pulled it out and put the grated cheese and mushrooms. returned to the lower baking steel for about 1 minute.

here is it is after taking out of the oven with the fresh chive.

this time the whole pizza was crispy, the sides and the middle. here is the underside of the pizza.

here is the pizza cut. notice that pieces broke off due to overcooking it. next time i will reduce the cooking time.