After the semi-disaster last week trying to make pizzas with Peter Reinhart's dough, I did make some changes in how I approached the pizza shaping and baking. Since there is just no way I'm going to shape a pizza by bouncing it on my knuckles and throwing it into the air, I did it all on the counter with my fingertips... I don't get circular pizzas, but whatever... though a word of caution: after two hours resting on the floured counter, there won't be much flour under the dough, so you'll want to move the dough and re-flour so that it doesn't stick. I also put the pizza stone on a oven rack moved to the lowest possible position (as opposed to the floor of the oven), so I could pull it out a little bit before trying to slide the pizza on there... in the hopes of minimizing any placement mishaps by my n00b self.
Overall it went well... made the Gruyere (2 oz), Asiago (1 oz), and Gorgonzola (1 oz) pizza again, but since last time I went overboard with cheese, this time I went under, as you can see up top... fairly predictable. I just pulled it out and put the rest of the cheese on and sent it back in to melt. For the spinach and ricotta pizza, the spinach wilted much more than I expected... what looked like a solid layer before, didn't really amount to much in the end.
So we've got two more of the dough balls in the freezer for next week, and I kind of like the idea of always having some pizza dough available. I think next time I might divide the dough into four pieces instead of six to get a little more dough to work with... as I like my pizzas a little bit thicker than this... but otherwise I'm quite satisfied.
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