Accidental Pizza Tossing 101.

I have no intention of ever tossing pizza dough, because I am far too uncoordinated to do so successfully.  Recently, however, I did accidentally toss a pizza.  An entire pizza, not just the dough. Admittedly, things had gone wrong previous to what I will hereafter refer to as the Incident, but that was when the pizza literally hit the fan (the oven fan).  I decided to check and see if I had enough cornmeal under the pizza and shimmy it around before sliding it onto the pizza stone.  It got stuck in one corner, and I shook a little (OK, a lot) harder than intended.  It went off and upward before falling in a heap on the stone.  I took the stone out of the oven to try to salvage the pizza, but...

Tha' was deliberate.  

I put it in the oven like that anyway, because it was late, and I just couldn't be bothered.  The taste was good, although (for obvious reasons) it didn't bake that evenly.

Now, I could still have avoided the Incident with a few changes to the pizza preparation.

What I did wrong:

1) Patted the dough out too thin.

2) Added too much sauce and too much cheese before the pizza went into the oven, resulting in a pizza too heavy to slide around easily.

3) Decided to first check if the pizza would slide while holding it in the oven.  (<-- This is always a bad idea.  Always.)

So on to the successful pizza.  I made a few modifications to the sauce recipe found here, and I used the crust recipe found here.  For the cheese, I just used mozzarella and Parmesan.

The only change I made to the dough recipe was adding ~1 tbsp each of fresh sage and rosemary (you can also used dried; in general 1 tsp dried herbs = 1 tbsp fresh). You can choose whatever herbs or spices you like, though, or use none at all. 

 Remember that you don't have to use all the flour,
and that room temperature and humidity will affect how much you need.

After pressing/rolling dough, it should stretch but not tear.

For the sauce, I'm not that fond of the texture of tomatoes (I know, I know; homemade pizza without fresh tomatoes? Ridiculous!  But there ya go.), and some reviews said the sauce was too thin, so instead of using a 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes in juice, I used:

14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes, in juice

6 oz can tomato paste
8 oz can tomato sauce

I ended up with enough sauce for two pizzas, so I'm freezing the rest of it until needed.  

(The coffee isn't an ingredient. 

It's for my sanity.)

The sauce will thicken while simmering, too.

I stretched the dough slightly and put it on a baking sheet dusted with flour and cornmeal (improvised pizza peel), then assembled the pizza on that while the pizza stone was in the oven preheating.  (A preheated pizza stone will ensure more even baking and a crispier crust, but you can bake on a regular pan as well.  If you're using a pan and not preheating it, you can ignore the next bit!)

After putting the dough on the peel, give it a (not too enthusiastic!) jiggle every so often to make sure the pizza slides around.  If it doesn't, lift gently and toss a bit of extra flour or cornmeal underneath.  To get the pizza off the peel and onto the stone, place the edge of the peel at the back of the stone, wiggling--again, don't do this too roughly, so that you can avert any Incidents--until the edge of the pizza is on the stone.  Then gently pull the peel toward yourself.  

I know this is blurry, but I had to take a picture after doing it successfully,

in case of any other imminent disasters.

I added extra cheese and summer sausage in the middle of baking just because the sausage was already cooked, but you can add your toppings beforehand.  Just remember that loading down a crust before putting it in the oven can make getting it into the oven more difficult.

Because I accidentally preheated the oven to a lower temperature than the dough recipe called for and had to raise it just after putting the pizza in the oven, the dough took a bit longer than the cheese.  But overall, pizza was finally a success:

The finished product!

DEEMS THIS RECIPE:

Easier than pie 

...if you're careful.