When you want to skip takeout, make your own pizza

During the weeks we spent in quarantine, we ordered takeout meals from several of our favorite restaurants, enjoying grilled fish, steak tacos, roast chicken, lamb gyros and a wide range of salads.

The one thing we rarely considered ordering was the food already popular as a takeout or delivery meal – pizza.

Because there are so many convenient options for pizza crust and customized toppings, it just didn’t make sense to order pizza that would be lukewarm by the time we sat down to eat it. Instead, we made our own, including the somewhat disappointing version in the photo (more about that mishap below).

As every pizza fan knows, the most important aspect of a good pizza is a good crust. That said, everyone has their criteria for what makes the crust delicious. Some prefer the thin, foldable New York style, while others opt for the deep-dish crust piled high with chunky sauce that’s popular in Chicago.

If you look into the various types of pizza crusts, you’ll discover quite a long list, but the basic distinction is whether the crust is thick or thin. Neapolitan is considered the “original” pizza, with a paper-thin crust cooked quickly at very high heat. The recipe for a New York crust adds oil and sugar to the flour and yeast mixture, creating a slightly chewier texture.

Thick-crust pizzas tend to be cooked in rectangular (rather than round) pans and because of their heft, need a longer time in the oven. Their sturdiness also allows for more toppings and often requires the use of knife and fork. Making your own crust is easy enough; you can also roll out frozen dough or purchase a ready-to-bake preformed crust, even ones made from riced cauliflower.

We’ve tried the different Boboli crusts and they’re just OK compared to the fresh or frozen dough you can buy at the grocery. Last week’s pizza (see photo) was made with Wewalka’s European bakery-style dough for “round & thin crust.” Produced in Austria, it’s sold in the supermarket refrigerated section and comes rolled in parchment paper which stays beneath the crust as the pizza bakes.

As previously mentioned, I made a few mistakes with this pizza. The first was not having the oven hot enough. The instructions call for 425 degrees, but that setting just didn’t crisp up the crust, which was also too thin to form an edge. The second issue was using too much sauce for the paper-thin crust, leaving things a bit soggy.

The sausage could have been more thinly sliced and the mushrooms were overcooked, so the toppings weren’t ideal. And, the final problem was selecting fresh buffalo mozzarella. This cheese was just too moist and milky. It couldn’t be shredded or grated, so my only choice was to cut it into slices, which became challenging when the cheese started unrolling itself.

Surprisingly, we didn’t object to all of these missteps, including the need to break out cutlery and lots of napkins, because the pizza was piping hot and full of flavor. Despite the convenience of simply opening the package, there wasn’t enough crust in this crust for me to try it again. I’ll stick to the frozen or fresh dough, or maybe just make my own. I’ve included a recipe for pizza dough, a white pizza and a traditional Margherita pizza. Of course, there’s always takeout or delivery.

Pizza Crust

White Pizza

Margherita Pizza

Sauce

Pizza