Ever wondered why your homemade pizza doesn’t quite capture the magic of your favorite pizzeria?
The secret lies in the details! Here’s a breakdown of key factors that influence the taste and texture of your homemade pizza dough:
Three main mistakes that makes homemade pizza taste junky!
#1. Sugar count:
There is no reason to add sugar to your dough because instant yeast does not need to be started before using it (active dry yeast does), but more importantly because yeast eats flour!
Yeast will convert the starches in flour (slowly) into the sugar it needs to live and give you a slower and more flavor-filled rise.
If you want to quicken the conversion of starch to get a better rise, you are better off using some diastatic malt powder, which has enzymes that help yeast convert the flour into food. Sugar is castoffs food for yeast, there is no need for it.
#2. No salt:
You must have salt in a dough recipe. If you do not, it will taste bland and flat. This by itself could be causing it to taste “bready”. For every 3 cups of flour, you should be adding at least 1 tablespoon of salt minimum.
#3. Quick rise:
Byproducts are the things that give bread most of the flavor people associate with good bread (glutamates and alcohol).
That will not happen in a 1-hour rise. More than anything else, flavor in bread comes from time.
Yeast If you want to have good tasting pizza dough, the best and most important thing you can do is make the dough 2 days ahead of time (1 day at least) and let it cold rise in the refrigerator or in a cool room temperature if you do not have a fridge.
![make the dough 2 days ahead of time make the dough 2 days ahead of time](https://modenwoman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/pizza-dough-fe21410.jpg)
The reason city-outlet pizza tastes the way it does, is because all the good pizza shops are using wild yeast sourdough starters and giving the dough time to cold rise.
What can i do to improve the flavor of my pizza crust?
If you are allowing your dough to ferment overnight in the cooler, or several hours at room temperature, in all probability your dough has enough fermentation to achieve a good fermentation flavor, so we need to look elsewhere for a solution.
Two of the most common reasons for insufficient flavor in pizza crust are due to a lack of either oil or salt in the formulation.
![whole-roman-pizza Crust whole-roman-pizza Crust](https://modenwoman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1393125739770.jpeg)
Reason of it like this: the salt generally has to be within the range of 1.5 to two percent of the flour weight, and the oil should be one percent or more. It does not make any difference what the flour weight is, the percent amounts are always the same.
When a dough formula is lacking in salt, the flavor of the finished crust will be bland, and it might even take on something of a starchy taste. You might be surprised to see how much a simple adjustment in the salt level can improve the crust flavor when the amount was originally too low.
The oil content of the dough can also have an impact upon the flavor of the crust because the oil can entrap many of the flavors of the baking pizza and bring them to the table of the consumer.
While not as significant as the effect of salt, oil can and does influence the overall flavor profile of a pizza. All you really need to have in your formula is one percent oil to accomplish this.
If you have more oil than this, so much the better, as you will also improve mouth feel, appearance, and maybe even contribute some of the oil’s flavor to the crust.
Steps to better pizza
- Find a good recipe. You really only need bread flour, salt, water, yeast (preferably sourdough or at least polish), and time for a very tasty pizza dough.
- Make the dough ahead of time, at least 1 day, flavor peaks at 3 days.
- Work the dough by hand; never use a rolling pin (unless you are trying for a cracker crust).
- Invest in a pizza steel. Skip the pizza stone, steel works 100x better. Faster heat up, better heat transfer.
- Cook the pizza as hot as your oven will get even if is 500 degrees or more if your oven gets that hot.
Now with the above knowledge, I believe you are ready for a kitchen practical now.
Today I want to teach you how to chef Cauliflower and Pickled Pepper Taco Pizza
Cauliflower and Pickled Pepper Taco Pizza
Ingredients:
- 12-16 oz. whole milk mozzarella
- *For the cauliflower:
- 1 head of cauliflower
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1½ teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ancho Chile powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- pinch kosher salt
- *For the pineapple pickled peppers:
- 10-12 serrano peppers, thinly cut on a bias
- 1 cup white vinegar
- 1 cup pineapple juice
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 garlic cloves
- *For the citrus pickled onion:
- 1 whole red onion sliced thin
- 1 -2 lemons
- *Post bake toppings:
- Fresh Cilantro
- Chipotle sauce (store bought is fine)
Instructions:
- To roast the cauliflower, cut the cauliflower into florets and add them to a mixing bowl.
- Add the oil, cumin, chile powder, paprika and salt.
- Toss to incorporate all the spices into the cauliflower.
- Add the spiced cauliflower to a sheet pan and roast at 500-550 F for 10-15 minutes, tossing and turning every couple of minutes to get an even cook and char marks.
- When the cauliflower is tender and thoroughly roasted, take out of oven and let cool. Once cooled, wrap and refrigerate.
- To pickle the onions, put your thinly sliced onions into a bowl and squeeze the lemon over the onion. Once all the juice is covering the onions, toss and make sure the lemon juice is hitting all the onion. For the first hour or so, keep turning the onions and mixing them in the lemon juice.
- Cover and refrigerate.
- To pickle the peppers, put the sliced peppers in a bowl.
- Add the vinegar, pineapple juice, salt and sugar to a sauté pan and boil, stirring carefully until the sugar and salt dissolved.
- Pour solution over the cut peppers, cool and wrap.
- Stretch your dough to desired size and add to a floured pizza peel.
- Top with 4 ounces of mozzarella, and then arrange the roasted cauliflower around the pizza.
- Bake pizza for 10-12 minutes at 550 F, turning when needed to ensure proper bake.
- When finished baking, remove pizza from oven and let cool on a rack for a minute or two.
- Cut pizza into six slices and, using a spoon, drizzle chipotle sauce around pizza.
- Spread pickled peppers, pickled onion and fresh cilantro leaves over pizza and serve.
If you followed the above instructions to the latter, for sure I know by now you are just smiling as you enjoy your own homemade pizza achievement… If it is that yummy, sharing with family, friends and neighbours is caring… Kudos!
In case you still experience some problems or have other questions or compliment, let me know below the comment and I will get back to you as soon possible. Thank you for learning my recipe tricks.
Expert trick:
If you prefer the dough thin and crispy, raise the oven temperature and leave it in the oven for a shorter time, i.e. about 10 minutes at 290º. If you like it thicker, bake it for 20 minutes at a temperature of 220º.
NOTE: Pizza is a dish of Italian origin consisting of a usually round, flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomatoes, cheese, and often various other ingredients, which is then baked at a high temperature, traditionally in a wood-fired oven. A small pizza is pizzetta.