And sometimes I would just throw a store bought freezer pizza in the oven, because I just didn’t feel like doing it {or I forgot to make the dough the day before}. And I said to myself, “Self. There has GOT to be a better way.” So I started experimenting.
The first time worked great! I did everything at once: Sauce, Cheese, etc, but instead of throwing it in the oven I threw it in the freezer. Let it firm up, then wrapped it in foil. One night I wasn’t home, Matt threw 2 pizzas in the preheated oven, and he had perfect pizzas in 12 minutes. The next time we tried freezing just the formed dough…that didn’t turn out so good. The dough cracked when we tried to remove it from the pan in the freezer.
Here’s what we do:
This is our go-to pizza crust recipe: Absolutely wonderful! It’s from Cook’s Illustrated and it’s perfection in a pie crust! I should know, I’m kind of a pizza afficionado ;-) A single batch of the recipe will make 2 good size {15”} pizzas. Now, when I’m doing this, I usually make a double or a triple batch of dough. It takes a bit more work, since I can’t fit it all in my food processor at once, but it’s worth it.
Follow the instructions for the pizza crust, just as you would if you were making fresh pizza.
Once your dough is ready to spread out, start spreading it out on a well greased {I use olive oil} freezer safe pan. If you want to do it on parchment paper or foil, that works too. You don’t want the finished, frozen pie to stick to your pan and break when you try to remove it {if you’re like me you don’t have cookie sheets that you can just leave in limbo in the freezer}.
Put on your sauce {about a cup of sauce per pie}, your pepperoni, your cheese, your granulated garlic and anything else you enjoy…even anchovies or sardines, although they don’t grace the pies in our home. If you’re going to throw things like eggplant and other high water foods on, I would hold off and throw them on just before baking them.
Pop the pies in the freezer! Let them get good and hard…a couple of hours usually does it. Once they’re done, let them sit on the counter for a few minutes {letting that grease warm up, because it’s probably hard too}. If you can safely remove the pies from the pans then wrap them up in foil, or plastic wrap, or whatever else you use, and throw them right back in the freezer.
Once you’re ready to cook them. Turn your oven to 500* an hour before hand, have your stone in the oven all ready. Let the pies sit on the counter for about 5-10 minutes {you want them slightly thawed, but not so thawed that the dough isn’t hard}. Pop’em in the oven for about 12 minutes, checking that they’re getting golden, but not burnt. Pull’em out. Let’em cool. And eat’em up!
There are a couple of ways that this saves you dough {$$$}: One, you’re not ordering from a highly marked up pizzeria. Did you know that it costs less than $2 to make a pie (12.5C on the flour, 50C on sauce, and a $1 or so on the cheese)?! How much are you paying for a pizza? Even freezer pizza {if you can find it for less than $10} isn’t that cheap.
You’re saving money on the ingredients if you buy bulk; buy a 5lb block of mozzarella and shred it yourself: Which is what we do. You have completely control over the ingredients. You know what is in your pizza. For us, knowing what exactly we’re eating is a big deal.
There you have it! Now, that’s pretty easy isn’t?
No comments:
Post a Comment