We happen to have one supermarket (10 miles away) we use that makes delicious hot pizza, but even that pizza is too scant in amounts of toppings. Their profit motive gets in the way of top quality. So sometimes we have added toppings and heated the pizza we brought home long enough for the extra toppings to be cooked or to get hot. But ... it just doesn't taste the same as a perfect pizza made right from scratch, fresh out of the oven. It is sadly amazing how quickly fresh hot pizza turns into plain old leftovers! You have to eat it very soon after it comes out of the oven originally to enjoy the real thing.
With that preamble it is time to move on to a fine home made pizza recipe. What you are about to read is one of the Food Nirvana teaching type of recipes, so there is more detail than in a typical recipe. Note that I tried different methods and recipes for years at home with, in my opinion, only marginal success. Frankly, it was depressing to be so ineffective in my own kitchen. Note also that numerous Internet recipes or boxed mixes that I tried led nowhere good. It is pretty obvious that I finally succeeded in making perfect pizza at home, else this recipe would not exist.
Recently I really wanted a fine meat lovers pizza but I was avoiding going out in public due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, by accident, I got lucky. I thought about baking a loaf of Rhode's® frozen white bread ... one you thaw, let rise, and then bake. I keep a supply of those frozen loaves in the deep freeze to cover any event where I need bread but lack regular store bought bread. Note in passing that I can also use my bread machine, but sometimes I just don't feel like measuring out ingredients, etc.
My eureka moment was when I thought about using a thawed and risen loaf of the white bread as pizza dough. I didn't know how that would work but it was worth a try. Ultimately it was perfect dough for making pizza. All I had to do was think my way through how best to roll it out with a lightly oiled rolling pin, add the other ingredients, and bake it. I had another eureka moment, when I realized I could use the flat baking stones in the oven and set the oven temperature to 500 degrees F. Along with that I realized if I rolled the dough out on parchment paper to form a rectangle that the dough would then have excellent contact with the very hot stones during baking. Sometimes one fine idea leads to another, and this was one of those special times.
The idea is that the very hot stones in virtually direct contact with the dough makes it bake like perfect thin crust pizza ... the perfect crust! The secret is extremely rapid (and sufficient) heat transfer from the stones into the dough. All I had to do was slide the raw pizza covered parchment paper from a baking sheet onto the surface of the hot stones, and that was easy ... simply pull out the shelf with the hot stones and use a corner of the parchment paper to pull it from the baking sheet to the right position on the stones. Then push the shelf back into the oven and bake for ten minutes at 500 degrees F. I checked after ten minutes and allowed the pizza to bake for two additional minutes. Then ... Voila! I used the process in reverse to pull the completed pizza away from the hot stones and on to the baking tray, ergo, the parchment paper could be grabbed and pulled, carrying with it the completed pizza, without burning my fingers (as long as I didn't touch the stones or the pizza). Or, you can play it safe and grab the parchment paper with a pair of tongs.
Okay ... now you understand the process and the key steps. The remaining part is simply adding the ingredients to the top of the pizza dough before baking, which I describe below. Note that some ingredients should not be put on to the pizza until the last five minutes of baking, to avoid burning them or drying them out. Some examples would be crushed pineapple or tidbits, or chives, or separated leaves of artichoke hearts, if you happen to like any of those or similar ingredients. Read on ...
Ingredients: (one 12" by 18" thin crust meat lovers pizza ... serves three adults two each of 6" by 6" slices of pizza)
1 pint of pizza sauce (or a bit more depending on how much sauce you like on your pizza)
A loaf of Rhode's® frozen white bread or equivalent product (thawed and risen)
Olive oil to lightly coat a rolling pin
1 pound (or more) of shredded mozzarella cheese
6 sandwich size thin slices of mild provolone cheese
3/4 pound of lightly fried ground sweet Italian sausage
1/2 cup of thinly sliced pepperoni
1/2 cup of diced lunch meat ham
1/2 cup of sliced green olives or ripe olives
1/2 cup of thinly sliced, drained canned mushrooms
1 cup of freshly grated Parmegiano Reggiano cheese (at serving time)
Directions:
Set the oven temperature to 500 degrees F. Make sure the shelf you plan to use is close to the top of the oven and has flat stones on the shelf of total size 12" by 24" or more. Also put a large baking sheet with sides on a lower shelf directly under the baking stones to catch any melted cheese that falls from the baking stones while the pizza is being baked.
Roll the loaf of thawed, risen white bread on a 12" by 20" sheet of parchment paper, to a size of 12" by 18", thus leaving one inch of extra parchment paper on each end. This will take multiple passes with the rolling pin in all four directions to get the rolled out dough to stay extended in size to 12" by 18".
Spread the pizza sauce evenly over the dough surface except for a thin quarter inch or so of dough border around the perimeter of the pizza.
Add the shredded mozzarella cheese evenly over the surface of the sauce.
Add the slices of provolone cheese spaced evenly on top of the mozzarella cheese.
Add the ground, lightly fried Italian sweet sausage evenly on top of the pizza.
Add the thin slices of pepperoni evenly on top of the pizza.
Add the sliced olives evenly on top of the pizza.
Add the canned mushroom slices evenly on top of the pizza.
Use a flat baking tray and slide the parchment paper and pizza on to the baking tray.
Open the oven and pull out the shelf containing the flat stones.
Hold the baking tray next to the stones and slide the parchment paper and pizza on to the stones.
Close the oven and bake the pizza for ten to twelve minutes, checking it for doneness after ten minutes.
Remove the parchment paper and baked pizza from the flat stones onto the baking tray by pulling it off, holding a corner of the parchment paper.
Place the baking tray on the counter and cut the hot pizza into six slices with a pizza cutter or sharp knife.
Serve the pizza immediately along with a one cup bowl of freshly grated Parmegiano Reggiano cheese.
Serve cold beer or cold sodas as the beverage.
Enjoy!