The 80-second pizza attempt

Category: Personal

Published: 01/05/2010 02:47 p.m.

Three things were going on in this attempt:

1. Gus Mueller's 80-second pizza baking method
2. Pioneer Woman's homemade dough
3. Buffalo Mozzarella via recommendation from Anthony Mangieri

In the science world, it is important to keep some things constant so you know what you are testing. For my big pizza bake-off, I had many variables flying around at once. This was the base cause of the many different variations of pizza I made.

The oven was preheated to 550 and the Pampered Chef pizza stone placed near the top for a full hour. In that time, we also let the dough set. The dough probably could have used some additional time to rise, but I was anxious for some homemade pizza. After the dough was done, I turned on the broiler to high and made the pizza. I added some basic sauce, oregano, and bits of (pricey) buffalo mozzarella that Meg found at the store. I was all ready to super-bake my first pizza.

Results

Overall cook time was probably 140 seconds. The biggest thing I think I was missing was a pizza peel to easily slide the pizza onto the stone. This did not work so well from a metal tray I had used to build the pizza. The dough was stuck to it, and that made sliding the pizza onto the stone a bit difficult. I think I may have let some heat out of the oven as well.

The next overall mistake I had was using too much dough and made a much too thick pizza crust which turned out tasting doughy. I had too little cheese as well and the baking was a bit uneven, but that was due to the oven. The buffalo mozzarella seems to liquify under the high temp of the boiler and the dough didn't cook all the way in the 80 seconds.

The next go around used less dough, more flour, and a combination of fresh mozzarella and buffalo mozzarella. It turned out a bit better with less of a doughy taste and a bit more crisp to the crust. But still, it was not what I had seen from the other connoisseurs.

Follow-up

The kind of amazing thing about just about any food you cook yourself is that it still tastes good. Even in a doughy under-cooked/over-cooked kind of mix, I still ate all of my pizza. As for Gus' method of super-cooking your pizza, I may need to succeed in baking a pizza in the regular 10 mins on high temp. I like the light toppings of just cheese, oregano, basil, and a little bit of garlic. I don't think the buffalo mozarella is a good candidate for the quick method as it seems to just melt too quickly.

However, I did get a pizza peel and my own stone and tried to bake in Meg's oven, and overall it took about 5 mins but I made a much tastier pizza. She even made a couple of calzones which were delicious.

I look forward to more pizza adventures and time spent tinkering in the kitchen.