If you make homemade pizza...

[chickenpatty]

Do you normally bake the crust before you add the toppings & then bake it some more? Do you "parbake" it?

 

I made a batch of pioneer woman's pizza dough yesterday and am looking forward to using it tonight. I was excited to find a dough you could make so far ahead of time.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I don't bake mine ahead. I have found that pizza cooks best at high heats.

[RegGuheert]

 

Do you normally bake the crust before you add the toppings & then bake it some more? Do you "parbake" it?

No. We use a pizza stone to help with baking the crust. Here are the details of what we do.

 

[chickenpatty]

Ooh la la! Thankyou for reposting that!

[elise1mds]

I pre-bake my crusts for about 10 minutes at about 425 and then put on the toppings and cook it for another 10 minutes or so (still at 425).

[Saille]

I don't bake mine ahead. I learned the hard way to only put one pizza in the oven at a time (my dough recipe makes two). The center in the top one won't cook properly if I do. I bake them in a preheated 450 degree oven for fifteen minutes. I use stoneware, but I baste it with olive oil and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Nothing worse than a stuck pizza when everyone's following the smell to the kitchen!

[LauraGB]

Depends on the toppings. There is a spinach and feta one with just olive oil (no red sauce) that I make that I have to cook the crust first because once the toppings are on, it is just a matter of melting the cheese and wilting the spinach. But for the regular one with the tomato sauce topped with veggies that should be a bit cooked, I don't prebake the crust.

[hmschooln]

I pre-bake my crusts for about 10 minutes at about 425 and then put on the toppings and cook it for another 10 minutes or so (still at 425).

 

Same here:)

[Jen in PA]

I pre-bake my crusts for about 10 minutes at about 425 and then put on the toppings and cook it for another 10 minutes or so (still at 425).

 

Same here but at 450.

[tricia]

I usually bake it all together but I'll have to try her way.

[Heather in OK]

Yes, I do. If I don't, the sauce makes the dough really soggy and doesn't bake all the way through.

[HRAAB]

When I had a pizza stone, I didn't. My pizza stone cracked down the middle and Santa forgot to get me one. :glare: So now I am pre-baking the crust for about 6 min. before I put on the toppings. Seems to work better that way when you don't have a stone.

[Carol in Cal.]

For instance, if I'm going to top with mushrooms, I cook and drain them first, or chop them up very fine and don't layer them on very thickly.

 

The sauce I use is quite thick and doesn't soak in.

[hweakland]

I don't prebake, but my MIL does and her crusts are always more crispy. She also heats the pizza oiled pizza pan in the oven before she lies the crust on it. Her crusts are very similar to the pan pizza crusts at Pizza hut.

 

I personally don't have the time to go through all that. I do however keep a pizza stone in the oven at all times and bake the pizzas in their own pans on top of that.

 

Also, if you are looking for a soaked pizza crust try this sourdough pizza recipe! http://www.fieldstoneorganicfarm.com/recipes/recipes.htm

 

Hope

[Melora in NC]

I don't pre-bake. I use an aluminum disk with holes (the link isn't exactly what I have, but it's close) and bake at 470 for about 8 minutes. The only thing with that pan is that you have to be pretty quick with the toppings once the dough is on the pan or it will stick. But it makes a lovely crust. Of course, I am lucky that dh used to have his own pizza place, so I make the dough but he tosses it for me -- I can't do that part.

[HappyCrazyMama]

I don't but I do put a thin layer of olive oil on the crust before I add the other toppings.

[monalisa]

If there are lots of veggies I prebake at 450 for 5 - 7 minutes before putting on the toppings & cheese.

[Alice]

I prebake, but don't have a stone.

[PineFarmMom]

I make the recipe, tweaked, from SOTW 4. We top the dough and bake at 450 for 12 minutes. Good stuff!

[Tree House Academy]

It depends. If we are freezing the pizza crusts, then we bake them for just a few minutes to harden them before freezing. If we are making the pizza fresh, we cook the dough and toppings together on a pizza stone.

[Dawn in OH]

I do not pre-bake my crusts.

[Cricket]

I usually bake my crust for a few minutes before putting on the toppings. It always seems to turn out better that way.

[GailV]

We pre-bake. We've had homemade pizza almost every Friday night for over 15 years, and it's what works best.

 

I don't pre-bake. I use an aluminum disk with holes (the link isn't exactly what I have, but it's close)

 

At one point we had one of those pans with holes, and a bit of dough would invariably get stuck into one or two holes. Which always squicked me out for some reason. The holes in ours were smaller, though, than the one you're linking.

[sandalwood]

I never prebake.

[Julie in CA]

I don't prebake, but my MIL does and her crusts are always more crispy. She also heats the pizza oiled pizza pan in the oven before she lies the crust on it. Her crusts are very similar to the pan pizza crusts at Pizza hut.

 

So Hope, how does she get the crust onto the hot pan? Does she actually pat out/roll out/toss the dough to get it in the correct shape, then just lay it out on the hot sheet? I've always wondered about that. I tend to just make my dough, then sort of pat/stretch it into my pan, then bake. I'm pretty sure the missing link for me is the part where the dough gets shaped for the pan. How can I do that putting it in the hot pan thing if the only thing I know how to do with the dough is to roll it out (kinda) and then pat/stretch to fit the pan? I don't see me tossing dough in the air to round it/shape it, etc! :001_huh:

[Sputterduck]

I used to work at a pizza place and just cook it all at once like the pros do. I can't imagine prebaking it...

[Guest mollysmommy97]

We bake the pizza without the cheese on top on a pizza stone. We add the cheese on top the last 5 min or so.

 

 

Do you normally bake the crust before you add the toppings & then bake it some more? Do you "parbake" it?

 

I made a batch of pioneer woman's pizza dough yesterday and am looking forward to using it tonight. I was excited to find a dough you could make so far ahead of time.

[Jayne J]

So Hope, how does she get the crust onto the hot pan? Does she actually pat out/roll out/toss the dough to get it in the correct shape, then just lay it out on the hot sheet? I've always wondered about that. I tend to just make my dough, then sort of pat/stretch it into my pan, then bake. I'm pretty sure the missing link for me is the part where the dough gets shaped for the pan. How can I do that putting it in the hot pan thing if the only thing I know how to do with the dough is to roll it out (kinda) and then pat/stretch to fit the pan? I don't see me tossing dough in the air to round it/shape it, etc! :001_huh:

 

 

I use a wooden pizza peel--a paddle type thing. I roll the dough into the general shape, sprinkle the peel with cornmeal, place the crust on it, add toppings and shimmy it off the peel and onto my pre-heated (525 degree) pizza stone in the oven. 10 minutes later, perfect pizza. (I do have to pre-cook any veggies I use or they don't get soft.)

[TMc]

We like lots of sauce, cheese and veggies. Until we started prebaking the crust it was always soggy.

[KathyBC]

I learned the hard way to only put one pizza in the oven at a time (my dough recipe makes two). The center in the top one won't cook properly if I do.

 

I cook two at a time. I set the timer for half the time, then rotate top one to bottom and bottom one to top, then let them cook for the other half.

 

And I don't bake the crust ahead of time either.

[RegGuheert]

I cook two at a time. I set the timer for half the time, then rotate top one to bottom and bottom one to top, then let them cook for the other half.

We also cook two at a time in a 500-degree oven. We used to move them in the middle, but that is a little more than I want to deal with when pizza stones are in place. What we do instead these days is place one stone all the way to the left and one stone all the way to the right. This does not eliminate the difference in cooking, but it does reduce it significantly.

 

We are left with is a smaller difference in cooking and we take full advantage of this difference. The pizza which is higher in the oven will have its toppings cook faster and the pizza which is lower in the oven will have its crust brown faster. By placing the pizzas with few toppings on the lower stone and the pizzas with many (or more) toppings on the higher stone all types of pizza get cooked appropriately. The kids' pepperoni or ham-and-pineapple pizza on the lower stone is cooked perfectly in about 8 minutes and the all-the-way pizza on the higher stone is ready in 10 or eleven minutes.

[Guest mrs. logic]

I prebake the crust for 15 minutes before adding toppings.

[4mkfam]

My pizza crust recipe makes two crusts -when we only need one, I prebake them both at 425 for 10 minutes, then wrap and freeze one crust for later, top and bake the second for dinner that night.

[tex-mex]

I use a wooden pizza peel--a paddle type thing. I roll the dough into the general shape, sprinkle the peel with cornmeal, place the crust on it, add toppings and shimmy it off the peel and onto my pre-heated (525 degree) pizza stone in the oven. 10 minutes later, perfect pizza. (I do have to pre-cook any veggies I use or they don't get soft.)

 

I have the stone & paddle. And tried doing that -- and it was a mess. LOL I think I need to half the amount of dough. I love my pizza stone! I usually whip up the dough in my bread machine and plop it onto a cold pizza stone. Put on the toppings and bake at 400 degrees for less than 17-18 min. Delicious!

 

(I'm going to try to do the preheated pizza stone with smaller size dough. Thanks for the tip!)

[OhM]

After a good deal of experimentation, we've settled on pre-baking for 8 minutes @ 450F.

 

Then 8-12 minutes more with toppings.

 

We don't have a stone, though - metal pans.

[caitlinsmom]

I dont precook mine. I load it up and stick it in for 20 min or so on 400-425.

[chickenpatty]

Here's the (well mine, anyway) verdict... I made Pioneer Woman's pizza dough. I did not pre-bake. The flavor was great, but the dough - even though I had rolled it thin- was still doughy under the cheese & sauce.

 

However, I did not bake it on a stone. Perhaps that is why it was still doughy? (I had a stone, but hadn't used it for 10 years - ended up giving it to my MIL about a month ago - go figure.)

 

So, for my next attempt, I will pre-bake. :) Will report back here with results. Stay tuned.