...baked bads!

I got my first real paycheck yesterday and I celebrated by purchasing a pizza peel. And then further celebrated by making my first ever home baked pizzas. They were edible, but certainly didn't fall under the category of "good." Number one out of four came out more as a calzone than a pizza. the edge got stuck on the baking stone as I was shoving it in the oven and as I tried to push it in it just kind of flipped up on top of itself.

The recipe I used, by the way, was roughly this one posted by Adam Kuban.





















Current problems:
- Bland crust. I'm trying to remedy this. I have two plans. One might call it a two-pronged attack. (1) Use fresh yeast instead of instant dry yeast and (2) cultivate my own sourdough yeast culture. I seem to have succeeded in cultivating a sourdough. I just have no idea if it's going to be any good. It sure looks and smells pretty gross. I may use both of these in my next attempt.

- Too much pull-back when stretching the dough to make the base. Probably due to not enough hydration.

- The sauce is maybe a bit bitter and I think generally needs some more seasoning. Jeff Varasano rinses his tomatoes to rid them of the bitter flavoring that I assume is due partially to the tin the tomatoes are packaged in. At least, that's one theory Mr. Varasano posits.

Things that were alright: basil, cheese, olive oil... basically anything I didn't really have a hand in actually making. Though, even the mozzerella was a bit bland this time around.

The tentative plan is to try making one set of pizzas a week. Making dough is pretty time consuming though.