I’ve been doing this for a while, but it’s a problem I’ve never solved. Dunno if it’s my crust recipe or something I need to do during construction.
The recipe is as follows:
- 1c water, 120°F
- 1 packet dry active yeast (2.25tsp)
- 1Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2Tbsp olive oil
- 3.5C white flour
- 1tsp salt
- Mix the yeast and sugar in the warm water, wait to bloom
- Add everything else and mix into dough.
- Knead, proof
- Roll out, transfer to pan
- Second proof (optional)
- Preheat oven to 425°F
- Construct pizza with favorite toppings
- Bake at 425°F for 15min or until cheese is sufficiently browned
Step 7 usually has jarred marinara, meats (except pepperoni), spices, and cheese, and all the veggies (and pepperoni) go on top.
Still, the very middle part of the pizza ends up a little doughy, just where the sauce meets the crust. The outside of the pizza is just fine, but the only thing I can think is that the sauce is adding too much water. Do I need to add a layer of oil before the sauce, or should I try to reduce the sauce before adding it? Should I reduce the temp and increase the time?
Thanks!
Edit: Everyone has had some great ideas. I’ll have plenty to try!
@Telorand Soggy crust is usually from the toppings. Try using less marinara. Also experiment with pre cooking veggies, especially mushrooms.
Your oven temp looks a little low. I bake at 550° convection for about 6:30. Finally, if you don’t have a pizza stone or (preferably) a steel, you might consider that. It really helps get the crust done better.
Instead of jar sauce, do 1 can tomato paste, 1 can tomato sauce or crushed tomato, 1tbsp Italian seasoning, 1tbsp garlic powder, salt and crushed red pepper to taste. Mix it all together before you make the dough and it should be pretty flavourful by the time you’re ready to cook. It’s easier than reducing the jar, and gives you more personalized flavor.
If that doesn’t reduce the water content enough, try adding just a touch more flour to the dough.
I like that idea. I’m all for personalization, and reducing the amount of heat needed for the whole process would be a blessing for where I live.
A pizza stone.
A stone or steel and higher temperature+less time will help immensely. Even a preheated cast iron pan would help. (Look at specific cast iron pizza instructions, I haven’t made any)
I tend to do 500f for 6-7 minutes on a baking steel and even heavier toppings are good.
Also: what toppings? Uncooked mushrooms and pineapple are super wet, cooking them beforehand is important.
Yes, mushrooms are often in the sauce layer. I had no idea they had so much moisture. They don’t seem wet, like a green pepper or fresh tomato, so I just stuck them in there!
Theyre basically like spinach in terms of cooking.
I always cook the mushrooms first with soy sauce and red pepper flakes. Cook them down and toss them so they’re well coated and the water is all reduced off. Six or seven minutes while we roll out the dough.
Tip; cook mushrooms covered until they release their water. Steam them hard for like 5 mins. They’ll shrink and squeeze out their moisture. Don’t use oil, they just absorb it. Then reduce the liquid.
This right here, pre-heat the pan/stone and you’ll get a better crust. I’m presuming you’re not making the crust too thick.
100%. Get one OP, especially if you’re going through the work of making your own dough
Used to have one, I just never replaced it when it cracked. Times were tighter back then!
They can be had for pretty cheap, really, but I prefer putting my fresh made pizzas in a cast iron skillet.
Go one tier lower from the middle rack of the oven and cook at 450 instead of 425. Make sure your pizza stone or skillet is pre heated and fully up to temp with the oven before putting in the crust you made (like, pull out the skillet from the oven, set the crust in and put back in oven.). Put a fair amount of butter or olive oil in a skillet just before laying in the dough.
Don’t use the convection setting on your oven. You want the heat to rise from under the skillet/stone. It’s also why you go to a lower rack than the middle. It gets the bottom hotter and more crispy faster.
Obviously, you’ll have to adjust your times a bit for when to put in the sauce and toppings.
A great part about using a skillet is that not only will it cook similar to a stone, the ability to add butter and oil to the bottom really adds to the crisp texture of the bottom of the crust, and if you pull out out of the oven because your toppings are all done, but you find the crust still isn’t quite crispy enough or not quite done as you’d like, you can cook it a bit more on the stove top. Your pizza game will be 200% better. I’m a huge lover of non thin crust crispy crusted pizzas and I’ve been using a stone for frozen pizzas and a skillet for my fresh made pizzas for the past 20 years.
This and I went through a couple till I got a decent one and thankfully didn’t cost much. King Arthur flour has a nice one at a decent price.
I am sure the serious foodies will downvote this comment but I precook the crust to prevent this. Roll out the dough and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 then remove. Then just finish the pizza as you normally would.
I’m something of foodie and I agree with this. Also use less sauce, spread the sauce thinner, or find a sauce that has less water in it. It’s the unevaporated liquid in the sauce that insulates the dough on top and keeps that surface from baking properly, making it mushy. Par-baking the crust starts that baking process before you put the ingredients on and helps to avoid this.
Lots of thickly cut toppings with liquid in them such as tomatoes or improperly dried fresh mozzarella can also prevent the crust from baking properly so par-bake and then add the ingredients before finishing the baking to help with this. Good pizza takes work but you’re on your way to it.
Some people also mentioned mushrooms as a source of moisture, and I put fresh ones in the sauce layer (I forgot that exception). I never really thought of them as particularly “wet.”
But perhaps doing a par-baking step is warranted. You do it for pies, and what is a pizza, if not a pie?
I like thicker crispy crusts and heavily sauced. I’ve pre-cooked my dough before adding sauce and toppings for decades.
Sounds like a winning combination to me. Thick crust is what my SO and I like, and we judge takeout pizza on the crust quality 😆
It adds steps and what do foodies love more than a plethora of steps?
“all the veggies” bring all the moisture. Cut back or precook the wet stuff. Go easy on the sauce.
Go easy on the sauce.
Only as a last resort. I’m pretty sure my SO would cook me alive, otherwise!
I agree. Since I usually make the sauce myself, if I don’t cook it long enough, it may lead to moist crust. But it rarely happens anymore. Same for the toppings.
Hotter oven. I go with 500F on a steel. 5 minutes on Bake, then Broil until the top looks good.
Broil?? That’s crazy, do you not get underdone crust and the cheese separating?
Light olive oil on the crust before topping with sauce. Corn meal or corn meal/salt mixture under the crust to help absorb moisture trapped underneath. Perforated pans also help. I also cook at a higher temperature. 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure to preheat. A brick oven or pizza stone will help with consistent heating.
You could experiment. First try less sauce. Then maybe try making a different sauce. Lastly try a different dough.
Less sauce, and more heat. Dont cook it on a metal pan, get a stone or steel. Crank your oven up as high as it can go, and heat for 20-30m before putting the pizza in.
Also, marinara, especially the jarred kind, is not a sub for pizza sauce as there is way too much liquid. Get pizza sauce, or check seriouseats for their sauce recipe as a starter.
Edit: also, 120F is too hot for proofing yeast as it will kill it. 80-100F is more ideal.
I cook mine for 35min at 180°C like a fucking heathen
Heathens welcome at my house!
You’ve just got to do what works for you. I use a yeast I’ve kept from a bottle of live beer, put 10% semolina in the dough mix, and use blood sausage, apple & preserved chilis for toppings. No rules at my house
My immediate reaction would be to go for a thinner crust and to use a little less sauce. I definitely wouldn’t oil before sauce, but reducing the sauce could help if it’s a pretty thin sauce.
- Dough should use x/2 water for x amount of flour, in weight. And no sugar. So for example 300 g flour, 150 g water, 3 g salt. You can feed the yeast some of the flour instead. But don’t mix yeast and the salt.
- Boil the sauce so it’s as thick as possible. Should be very big, slow bursting bubbles.
- Preheat oven as high as it can go. It will still be colder than a real pizza oven.
The simple option is pre-cook it a bit.
But also worth trying pizza sauce, as it usually has less water in it.
You should dry your vegetables and press all the water out of them with a paper towel. And I mean you need to press them pretty hard and get the maximum amount of water out. You could par bake your crust if it’s still soggy even after drying your veggies. Another way is to make a cast iron pizza where you start the pizza for the first two minutes on the stove top while it’s in the cast iron pan and put it in the oven for the remainder of the time (15min at 500)
Hope this helps
Everyone is right- you need a stone.
Parchment paper on the stone for the first ~5 minutes gets a crisp crust without spilling corn meal everywhere.
but i like the cornmeal
But do you like the mess?
