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American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza

"A helpful slice of information, especially on dough making"

I found this to be a fairly serviceable treatise on the topic of pizza. The author, a baking instructor, had a longstanding interest in global pizza hunting, and always made it a point to sample the local pies wherever he traveled. Eventually, he got around to putting it all into book form, wherein he takes the reader on a condensed recap of his far ranging pizza (and foccacia) travels, from Philadelphia, to Texas, to NYC, to New Haven, to Italy, to California, to Chicago, etc., in his quest for perfect pizza.

The author then provides the reader with a basic dough recipe covering each of the (as he classifies them) major types of pizza: Napoletana, Roman, Neo-Neapolitan, New York-Style, Pizza Americana, San Francisco Sourdough Style, Grilled Pizza dough, Chicago Deep-Dish, Sardinian, etc. He then goes on to provide some basic tips for sauce, cheese, toppings, and some philosophical guidelines to help achieve balance in a given recipe.

I already knew most of what little information he provided about sauce and cheese and toppings - the primary focus in this book is primarily on dough making & handling, followed by baking methods, and there's some very helpful information here for amateur home cooks who've always wanted to learn the basics of home pizza making, either in a pan, atop a pizza stone or with a full fledged hearth insert.

I've been making pizza at home for years, and even I learned a few helpful tweaks to my technique ... and I've added a few famous pizza establishments to visit to my life itinerary.

My Nits ? I have a few.

1) IMNSHO, dusting as peel with cornmeal before using it to slide a pie into a home oven is just not practical technique for most home cooks, because it makes a mess of one's oven. The cornmeal and/or flour scorches, and causes one's kitchen (unless you're fortunate enough to have a powerful exhaust system) to reek of scorched flour and/or cornmeal. That's a technique intended exclusively for commercial pizza ovens that are easily and frequently swept out, and where keeping costs low is the golden rule. Try sweeping out a home oven, and you'll not only make a mess of your floor, but probably set your broom ablaze on the electric heating elements or gas burner. Personally, I've found that a much easier and cleaner technique for home cooks to use is to assemble the pizza on parchment paper, and bake it directly on a well heated pizza stone. Ignore the author's direction to remove the parchment after a few minutes - doing so is unnecessary, and only serves to cause your oven to lose 100F+ of precious heat, when it needs it the most. The crust doesn't come out quite as crispy after the initial baking, but if you want a crispier crust, it's a simple matter to keep the oven hot a little while longer, and rebake slices for 2-3 mins to order ... the crusts crisp up very nicely upon rebaking.

2) I'd have liked to have seen a lot more photos. This book only has a precious few of them, all of them black and white, and all of them of decidedly poor quality and exposure. In fact, the photography is downright inept.

3) I think the author aimed a little low in this book, with regards to heft. He could have, and IMO should have, squeezed more material into this book. To me, it read too quickly, and when I'd finished it later the same day, I felt it was a bit thinnish ... I wanted more regions covered, more recipes, and a lot more photos (esp competent ones).

4) I think the author could have included a 'putting it all together' chapter, where he could layout the nuances of how a home cook (i.e., most of the readership) could do a pracitcal in-home pizza party for, say 20+ people ... with nesting rising pans, pre-cut parchment, a cooling rack with screens, mis en place, and how to pre-bake and re-heat in a party settings, and how to store the equipment when not in use. Instead, the author just concludes with his list of dough recipes, and then assortment of topping combos to try.

Other than thhose 4 nits, this book is recommended. Add a point/star if you've always wanted to try making your own pizza from scratch, and this book succeeds in helping you take the plunge, or if the book inspires you to take your existing pizza dough technique to a new level (as it did for me).

Basic homemade pizza is fairly easy, and you can always strive incrementally for new levels of perfection.

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Yesturday, I made a batch of the author's neopolitan dough, with his trademark overnight rest in the fridge (I've used that before on my own, but my recipe was very different than the author's). Between the interim-knead rest, and the longer & slower refrigeration fermention rest, the dough came out much better textured than my old recipe (which frequently resulted in torn gleutin and underdeveloped elasticity during rising).

Tonight, I used half the resulting dough for pizza, and unlike my prior batches, the dough was properly elastic during kneading due to the longer rise time, I was able to roll it thinner, and I got nice big bubbles through the dough upon baking, and the flavor development of the dough was better.

So, on the basis of dough alone, this book is worth the cover price, as it's already affected my technique for the better.

Today, I bought some pizza dough {rising} pans.

I did Reinhart's recipe for napoletana dough last time before, but last time I did it medium crust by using it for 2 pies. This time I've divided it 3 ways, and I'll do thin crust.

I did the authur's napoletana style dough again, this time allowing the dough to stay wetter, and dividing it three ways (between the 3 pans mentioned above). Using my parchment-paper atop stone technique (to avoid the mess of cornmeal), and a longer preheat time, I was able to make 3 very respectible 14" thin crust pies (1 pie saturday evening, and 2 pies sunday evening), and the crust came out nicely crispy this time. Easily the best pizza dough result I've achieved to date, with regards to pre-bake workability and post-bake results.

I've completely jettisoned my old dough recipe, and I've adopted the author's resting, kneading and rising schedule. It work well.

BTW, rising in the refrigerator is very liberating, because the dough will keep for up to 3 days that way, and you can fire it off whenever you feel like it ... or punch it down and freeze it for future use.

p.s. Added 4th nit above.

Did the napoletana dough again this past weekend - a pie and a half went to visiting out of town in laws (after a half-pie tithe by yours truly) and the 3rd ball of dough went into the freezer (I basically stuffed it into a glad sandwich bag, then pressed it flat to speed freezing and thawing), to test the new dough's freezing qualities.

I thawed the dough in the fridge sunday, and baked it off a little while ago, after a 2 day 3rd rise in the fridge. I was surprised to discover that freezing caused no marked decrease in dough quality ... there werent as many big puffy air pockets through the center of the dough upon baking, but I got it nicely thin, golden brown and crisp with a 7 min bake, followed by a 30 sec refresher trip to the hot stone 2-3 mins after it came out. In fact, it was the 2nd best pizza crust I've ever made.

Because I have family in town for the weekend, after logging off, I'll whip up another triple batch of dough tonite, rise it once before bedtime, rise again overnight in the fridge, then punch it down in the morning (or evening, before bedtime) and freeze it tomorrow for this weekend .... very liberating to be able to thaw double risen dough the day before you want it, let it rise in the fridge when you're at work and then have ad many as 3 days to decide when you want to bake it off ... and still have it come out almost perfect, after only a 45 minute oven preheat. Perfect triple rise pizza, in under 1 hour, from a standing start, and with under 10 mins of total hands on time.

I'm really liking this new recipe - it's noticeably elevated my pizza talents. I havent learned to properly stretch dough yet (I'm still using the rolling pin method), but my results are now otherwise on par with my local pizza stores. I cant match a proper brick oven, but I can match or exceed everything else, regarding sauce, cheese and toppings.

Tip: I've discovered that my trick of grinding dried rosemary into the dough is not efficient. Trapped in the dough, even 1 full tsp of rosemary powder per dough ball is not nearly as flavorful as half as much scattered on top of the sauce, just prior to baking.

The better source of dough flavor is multiple risings, plus adequate salt.

... I was surprised to discover that freezing caused no marked decrease in dough quality ... there werent as many big puffy air pockets through the center of the dough upon baking, but I got it nicely thin, golden brown and crisp with a 7 min bake ...

I retract the bit about fewer air pockets. I did frozen dough again this past weekend, and the yeast in the dough was still lively enough to generate some large puffy bubbles through the center of the dough during baking. Frozen dough seems to be every bit as fine as fresh ... as long as you re-rise it fully, and allow it to come up to temperature before shaping and baking it off.