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Pizza Hut pan pizza is the easiest pizza to make yourself at home. You don't need a stand mixer, it's a no knead recipe (long overnight rise builds all the glu

• trynewideas 4y ago
  > You don't need a stand mixer, it's a no knead recipe (long overnight rise builds all the gluten). You don't need a fancy super hot oven That recipe is just focaccia with about half the olive oil, probably replaced by whatever runs off the toppings: https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/ligurian-focaccia https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/ligurian-focaccia - no stand mixer - no kneading - overnight room-temperature rise - 4:3 flour-water ratio - dough is dimpled in the pan before baking The Ligurian focaccia recipe brines it with salt water, which you don't strictly have to do but helps considerably, and bakes at 450F, which arguably so should any cast-iron pizza because the crust won't crisp up as much at 400F.
  • webkike 4y ago
    Focaccia is basically pizza without the sauce so I'm not sure if the clarification is helpful? Wikipedia claims that some places even call focaccia pizza bianca
    • alarge 4y ago
      There is no way that New York style pizza can be compared to Focaccia. They have almost nothing in common. Now that Chicago thing, maybe. But as far as I'm concerned, that's not pizza.
      • qbasic_forever 4y ago
        No one said this was NY style. The original comment was lamenting that Pizza Hut pan pizza doesn't taste as good as it did in the 80s and 90s. I pointed out recipes that directly mimic that classic pan pizza style. Pizza Hut is not and has never claimed to be New York style pizza. It's an entirely different style that's neither New York nor Chicago style. It's closest to Detroit style pizza.
        • atonse 4y ago
          Love it. Pizza Hut slices also worked well for eating with a fork and knife cuz they were thick and crunchy. Been meaning to try Kenji’s pan pizza recipe. Thanks for jogging my memory.
  • dnissley 4y ago
    Not sure if you were trying to object to the comparison, but this comment made me realize just how similar Pizza Hut pan pizza crust is to focaccia!
    • trynewideas 4y ago
      So does the Pizza Hut-alike recipe, but I didn't expect the actual recipe there to literally be a drier focaccia.
    • ilyt 4y ago
      Pizza by ingredients is just flour, water, salt, yeast. All the details and differences are in hydration and how it is mixed/kneaded/baked. It really is the definition of "the devil is in the details".
  • graycat 4y ago
    As at times I got told: "Cruel. So cruel. How could you be SOOOO cruel?" Ah, come ON: You no doubt know more about pizza than she does! Moreover it seems that it is common here at Hacker News for people to know a LOT about pizza making! But, for that poor woman, she is trying! Soooo, try to be kind!!!
  • kortilla 4y ago
    “A grilled cheese recipe is just a recipe for toast with some differences.”
  • qbasic_forever 4y ago
    Yes and if you've had a Pizza Hut pan pizza it tastes just like a buttery focaccia bread smothered in cheese and sauce. The ATK recipe at 400 degrees works because you cook it on the very bottom rack right next to the heating element. Then when it's done you cook it longer on your range at medium heat to really crisp the crust--it's in a cast iron pan after all. You can get the crust as toasty as you want.
• JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  I make pizza at home. If you let the dough ferment cold for at least overnight, the results are pretty darned good. I usually do a 3 day ferment in the fridge.
  • yamtaddle 4y ago
    I've done fancy dough plenty of times, but mostly just use lazy bread-machine dough these days. It's serviceable same-day—not as good as fancier preparations, but not as far off as one might think—and does also benefit from a night in the fridge, if one thinks to make it the day before. Just have to let it get back up to room temp before cooking, or it won't rise properly. Takes like five minutes of hands-on time, which is all just gathering and measuring the ingredients.
    • marcins 4y ago
      I've pretty much come to this conclusion as well, but I do still often cook the pizzas on my 12" Ooni Karu woodfired mini-oven though.. you don't get the same level of "leopard skin" / micro-bubbles, but it's mostly there. If I have a bit more time, but still relatively lazy, I'll use the stand mixer, but proof in my oven for an hour or two, which has a proofing mode which is basically a low temperature steam oven for a nice warm humid environment.
    • hnick 4y ago
      I've seen at least one preparation hack the yeastiness by pouring a little beer into the same-day mix too.
  • mprovost 4y ago
    This is the downside to pizza at home. Step 1 is always "go back in time 3 days and make dough".
    • yamtaddle 4y ago
      My bread-machine dough takes 5 minutes of hand-on time and is ready in two hours. It's not as good as if you let it rest or do a fancier hand- or mixer-prep, but it absolutely will not keep your pizza from being better than any of the major chains (not that that's a high bar, but still).
• arrosenberg 4y ago
  For making small batches at home you never need a stand mixer. Once you use the food processor, you will never go back.
• yamtaddle 4y ago
  I've got about as good a home pizza game as one can have without a modded or specialty oven, and can confirm, cast iron pan pizza is the perfect place for a newbie to start. The transfer from peel to cook surface is the most likely thing to go catastrophically wrong for someone starting out—pan pizza eliminates that step. No special equipment needed whatsoever—no peel, no stone, don't even need farina or coarse cornmeal on-hand. You can just cut it with a chef's knife or a cleaver (those are better than those stupid round-blade spinning cutters, anyway, and they're not that much worse than the long rocking-blade variety). About the only way to ruin it beyond fixing is to forget about it in the oven. It's an almost fool-proof dish, and great for building confidence that you can make good pizza at home.
  • fsckboy 4y ago
    by "peel" he means the "big spatula/snow shovel" on a long stick you use to put the pizza in an oven, and take it out.
    • yamtaddle 4y ago
      Important note: when home-cooking pizza, you can easily fake the peel with a large cutting board (wooden! Plastic may melt!) only for the taking-out portion. It may require a little more manual assistance, but it does the job. It's a much worse idea for putting the pie in, though (you can probably make it work, but... I wouldn't risk it) This is handy if you don't want to own more than one peel, but do want to be able to prep a second pizza on a peel while the first one is cooking.
  • kakoni 4y ago
    > The transfer from peel to cook surface … go catastrophically wrong Indeed, describes my attempts. Any tips how to succeed in this?
    • yamtaddle 4y ago
      More transfer medium than you think you should need. Experiment with the amount. If you don't know what I mean, I'm talking about coarse-ground cornmeal or farina, the latter of which is a very coarse-ground wheat flour sometimes used to make a kind of cereal-mush kinda like oatmeal or cream-of-wheat—but it's also outstanding for this job; coarse durham-wheat can do in a pinch, but it's too fine to really be good at it, plus it tends to be expensive while farina's usually cheap (and so's cornmeal, but avoid the fine stuff, you want the coarsest you can get). You put this on the peel before placing the stretched dough on it and adding toppings. Just spread it in a layer over the top of it. It helps keep it from sticking, which makes the transfer easier. I've found different peels require different amounts. I had a shitty looking peel that was somewhat-rough, unfinished wood and it didn't require much. It got ruined (I'll spare you the details, but, kids) and I replaced it with a cheap but fancier-looking one I found on amazon, that's dark-stained, smooth acacia or some shit. It's awful. I need so much more medium on it to keep the pizza from sticking. I've thought about roughing it up with sandpaper, see if that helps, but haven't tried it yet—if yours is smooth-finished and you want to be a pioneer, maybe try that. First pie I tried to cook with that thing was the first I'd ruined in years. Still mad about it :-) You probably don't need so much that you can't see any of the peel under it, though, even on one that bad. My better peel only required a light dusting, once I got my technique down. Point is, definitely use that stuff, and experiment with the amount of that you put on. The more you have to use, the more waste and the more mess, so there's good reason to dial in what you actually need and not just pile a ton on every time, but you need some amount. As far as technique: shake it loose over the sink (so any cornmeal or flour that falls off goes there instead of the floor or whatever) right before transferring to the oven. Just hold it level and shake horizontally, forward and back or side to side, until the whole pie's loose and moves freely. If you have spots that stick really badly, uh, try to lift it up and put more medium under it? This has never worked well for me, I've just gotten good at making sure that doesn't happen, but sometimes you can save it that way. Then, when transferring into the oven, you need to hold it at an angle shallow enough that gravity alone will not do the work—too steep an angle, and it'll pile up when it comes off. You'll need the same sort of shaking action here, but because it's tilted a little it'll also slide off as it goes. Start with the edge of the peel way at the back of your stone, maybe just an inch or so from the back edge of it, and move it forward as the pie comes off, else your placement will suck and, in the worst case, some of it won't be on the stone.
• silisili 4y ago
  My problem with homemade pizza was how much it costs. As someone who likes lots of toppings (pepperoni, sausage, olives, you name it), a pizza was costing me over $20 to make at home. At which point I guess I'd fail to see the point since it's now costing more and taking a lot of time.
  • qbasic_forever 4y ago
    Yeah although pickled or canned stuff like mushrooms, olives, etc. work great and you can just stockpile them in your pantry when you see them on sale. I usually make my pizzas with sausage instead of pepperoni because I find ground sausage cheaper than pepperoni. If you find stuff on sale all the core ingredients like cheese, sauce, etc. can last in your freezer for a long time.
    • stevenwoo 4y ago
      I buy the ingredients in bulk at a warehouse store and freeze the stuff that normally goes in refrigerator to prevent spoilage. Both meat toppings and cheese would mold if I left it in the refrigerator too long.