"Where the baker sleeps"

Which is what I hear large, cave-like holes in bread are called. This has got to be the largest bubble I ever had on a pizza!



The pizza the above slice is from was a delicious pesto.

Controlling the moisture of pizza sauce

Is your pizza soupy? Or is it too dry?

An important step in becoming a great pizza baker is to learn to achieve consistency. Everyone can turn out a great pie every once in a while, but to be able to do that every single time is a different matter altogether. That takes practice, and the ability to understand and control (or at least, contain) each parameter that influences the outcome.

A fairly obvious, yet very important step in all of this is that you must learn to control the moisture of your sauce. You have to anticipate the overall moisture level of the pizza and adjust the sauce's water content accordingly. You don't want to end up with a soupy pizza with the topping sliding off the crust the moment you lift a slice. On the other hand, you also don't want a pie with dry, shriveled chunks of tomatoes on top -- that is called a focaccia, not a pizza!

If you just use the crushed tomatoes straight out of the can, you are playing lottery. Whether the pizza turns out great, or whether it is a soupy mess -- it will be out of your hands.

Controlling the moisture is very easy. Obviously, if things are too dry, you can just add water. I never, ever had to do this! More often than not, I have to take water out of the tomatoes. This is easily achieved with a bowl and a strainer / colander. You dump your crushed tomatoes in the strainer, and then you use a spoon to stir it around, until enough water / juice drips out at the bottom.



How much moisture to take out of the tomatoes? That depends on many factors, such as your oven, the baking time and temperature, the tomatoes, the vegan cheese you use (if at all), and the toppings. This is where you have to experiment a little. If your pizza is soupy when you take the pizza out of the oven, then next time keep everything the same, but extract more moisture out of the tomatoes. In the meantime I have developed a good sense of being able to tell what is too much and what is enough and I'm able to make pizzas with a pretty consistent moisture level.

Teese for instance melts to a more watery consistency than Vegan Gourmet. Bakers ending up with soupy pizza is the number one complaint I hear from others who try Teese. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing this is because Teese first was developed for commercial pizzerias who use very hot wood fired or gas ovens -- and if anything, you want to increase the moisture in such ovens, because things will dry out fast.

If I use Teese, I wring my tomatoes pretty dry, so that there is quite little juice left among the tomato chunks. This works very well. Vegan Gourmet tends to melt less soupy and works reasonably well even with tomatoes straight out of the can -- this is why I don't have to do any adjustment in the video.


Non-soupy pizza with a lot of Teese (both mozzarella and cheddar). I took a lot of water out of the tomatoes to arrive at this consistency.

My Pizza Dough Is Famous

Image from Flickr

Well... sort of.

I'm a luddite when it comes to pizza restaurants, which is only fair since I pretty much never go out for pizza and always make my own. I know next to nothing about eating pizza in restaurants. Still, even I have heard of Jim Lahey and his famed new Manhattan pizza place, Co.

Now, as a self respecting San Franciscan I have a healthy dose of food snobbery built into my DNA, but Co. seems almost a little too elite for my tastes, especially their "No special requests" policy -- which might be bad news for vegans. Whatever. Lahey clearly knows his bread, and recently I came across an article in which he shares the recipe for his crust. Turns out (not very surprisingly, I might add) that it's very, very similar to my own fridge dough formula. This just proves that simple is always better. I have been baking no-knead breads and pizzas long before Lahey popularized the method, and this simple no-knead recipe yields the best crust I have ever tasted.

On a more personal note, you might be wondering where I have been and why the long silence on here? I dislike the "I'm sorry I haven't blogged" type of post many people seem to think are necessary after long breaks. So I won't do that, and it would be dishonest too, because I'm not really sorry :) I have been baking pizzas regularly, and have ideas for several new posts. On the other hand, many things have been going on in my life that made me not have the time to post. One of these things is the purchase of our first home. It should be noted that this house has a back yard, which I think will eventually lead to BBQs and grilled pizza. But all that is further down the road. And before anyone asks: NO, I won't build a brick oven in my backyard. Too much work! (And probably not legal in this city, either.)

Just keep being subscribed to the blog, and when I have something intersting to post about, I will -- I promise. And if you have any questions about vegan pizza, feel free to email me. Who knows, you might just give me the idea for my next post!


The backyard: potential site for future BBQ pizza.