Sicilian slice from DiFara. Brooklyn, NY. 2010.

60% hydration this was for guest and first time adding homemade ricotta

Neapolitan with some low moisture mozzarella, meatballs, cherry peppers, and fresh basil.

pretty good. did a double take when I saw the menu though

I’ve been making pizza on and off for decades and with a gozney dome for the past couple of years. I’ve been pretty happy with my results, using a range of recipes including poolish and biga. After researching some Sicilian recipes I really wanted to get into sourdough baking in the past year. I found a bakery that sells an Italian starter and now I have a white starter and a rye starter from that.

I finally made a few sourdough pizzas using this recipe https://amybakesbread.com/sourdough-neapolitan-pizza-dough/#recipe - The recipe is pretty simple when it comes to sourdough. I actually made a more complicated sourdough recipe for pizza a couple of weeks ago but I had some unexpected things come up and couldn’t bake it (a tragedy).

Anyway, the pizzas came out great. We ate it so fast, I didn’t get to take any more photos of the crust side profile. But it was great, among my best bakes as far as overall taste and texture. The sourdough taste was subtle and overall the dough had a light chewiness to it. The recipe called for 700F on the oven. I think next time I’ll try a higher temp. The bottom was cooked but I had to leave it in a little longer on the pesto pizza, to make sure it was cooked all the way through, which caused more charring than I like, but it was still eaten up!

So I’ll probably stick with that recipe for now and I might try some more complicated ones in the future.

My local pizzeria has new owners and I'm a fan! This pizza has no flop and a nice crispy texture. It was such a great slice that I went back for another. Oddly enough, the second slice was served on an aluminum tray with a piece of wax paper, my phone caught my attention and my slice sat on the tray for just a few moments, during which time the slice became floppy and chewy! What a difference it made! It basically steamed itself! I had no idea this could happen. So I started thinking about how I'm serving my pizza at home, I also serve it on an aluminum tray! Am I making my pizza floppy by putting it on a tray? What can I do to prevent my pies from becoming floppy? I initially put it on a screen to cool but then I put it on the tray to cut and serve! What's everyone else doing to keep their pie crispy?

I love the method of par baking a pizza. It allows the dough to get crispy without the cheese and toppings burning. Can't wait to keep learning and trying again and again.