Amy Cohen:
Hi everyone, and welcome to part two of our pizza making workshop with Karishma, the Cooking Collective. We're going to just very quickly go over the housekeeping rules again. We have the chat box, please utilize it for questions and we'll be sure they get asked. Also, we're asking people before you eat your pizza, can you take a picture of it and post it on your social media and tag @homecookingcollective, which is Karishma's company and her site, and also #brandeiswomen.
Amy Cohen:
And if you're a member of our Facebook group, if you could post it on our Facebook group, we would love to see the pizzas. But that would be a lot of fun for us. So we're going to remind you of that again, and we'll put it in the chat. But if you could do that, that would be great. I'm going to turn the program over to Rebecca who was helping us yesterday with the questions. Rebecca Bachman is the National Co-Chair of the BOLD Group and she is on the Brandeis Alumni Board. She's also a foodie and introduced me to a great scones place when I moved here from New York, to New York from LA. And that's it, Rebecca. 2013, is that right?
Rebecca Bachman:
Yes.
Amy Cohen:
I'm turning it over to you.
Rebecca Bachman:
Awesome. Thanks, Amy. And welcome back everyone. I did see a question in the chat already about if someone missed part one, can we catch up and will there be a recording? There will be recordings of both. And another housekeeping detail. We are currently recording this session too. Before I kick it off and take it over to Karishma, I just want to thank her once again for leading part two of her pizza making workshop series for Brandeis women. Karishma is Brandeis class of 2015, and she's the founder of The Home Cooking Collective, which is a community for aspiring cooks to learn how to make delicious food through high quality workshop guides and recipes. And I think we all saw from yesterday how high quality her workshops are.
Rebecca Bachman:
I know I learned a lot. We'll post it in the chat, but I encourage you to follow her social media channels. As Amy mentioned, tag her in what you made tonight and also keep an eye out for other classes that she leads. And if you're ever looking for private cooking workshops, she offers those as well. But I'm going to pass it off to Karishma. I will be moderating any questions that come up in the chat, and we'll make sure that they all get answered. Thank you guys all for being here, and take it away, Karishma.
Karishma Pradham:
Thank you, Rebecca. I'm really excited for day two of our pizza workshop. So, we're actually going to be able to cook and eat our pizza today, which is very exciting. The first thing that I want to just make sure is by now, you should have had your dough out of the fridge for about at least 45 minutes. If it's covered right now, that's totally fine. We'll uncover it in a few minutes. But if you haven't already make sure that you take your pizza dough out of the fridge it needs time to come back to room temperature before we stretch it out and bake it.
Karishma Pradham:
And the second thing is you should also have preheated your oven. So the oven should be at the highest temperature that go to, for me, that's about 550 degrees, for you, it could be 500, it could be lower than that. And I have the equipment that I'm going to actually be making my pizza on. So I'm using a baking steel, but if you're using a pizza stone, or if you're using a baking sheet that should also be in the oven and I have mine on a middle rack, a middle or the bottom third of your oven is, either of those totally works. But make sure that that equipment and your oven is preheating right now.
Rebecca Bachman:
Karishma, we have one question in the chat already. My dough didn't grow very much. It's spread out a little, but that's it, will it still work? And Francine, I encourage you to go on video and hold up your dough so that Karishma can take a look while you answer.
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah, let me take a look. I wouldn't be too concerned. It's okay if it didn't grow too much, it doesn't always fully double in size. Even mine, for example also is relatively, it looks kind of this and it spread out a little, but it will also continue spreading out at room temperature and when you stretch it out. Yeah, that looks okay to me. The other thing that you kind of you can do is you can just feel very gently feel your dough. So, if your dough is feeling really, really cold, it might just need a little bit more time to come to room temperature. And as it comes to room temperature, it's going to spread out a little bit more, but it's not going to be like a really large thin circle yet, that's going to happen from us actually stretching out our dough.
Karishma Pradham:
All right. So, we'll put our dough to the side for now and what we're going to do first is we're just going to get all of our toppings and our sauce ready. And so then once we have all of our sauce and toppings ready, then we'll be ready to actually work with our dough to stretch it out and top it. So we are making a margarita pizza today. Traditionally, a margarita pizza is really simple. And so the idea is that you have a sauce, which is made of fresh tomatoes. And so that's why I had sort of asked for a can of whole peeled tomatoes or tomato passata, which is a puree. Both of those, again, they're not cooked. We're not going to cook them down. That's something that you might use, for example, a New York style pizza dough, but for a margarita pizza, we're really just going to have this nice raw sauce and you really want to be able to highlight that freshness of the tomatoes.
Karishma Pradham:
So, depending on what you have, you can either have ... I have this. This came from a can of whole peeled tomatoes. You can see, I have my separate tomatoes and then there's some sauce at the bottom, or you might have tomato passata, which again, is just an Italian tomato puree. And so it's already been curated. It's nice and thick. So that's kind of the sauce. And then similarly with the rest of your toppings. So if you have cheese, we're using mozzarella cheese, but throughout this whole thing for margarita pizza, it's all about keeping it simple. You can definitely add other toppings, but the biggest thing to make sure is to not overload your pizza with a ton of toppings, because the more you weigh it down, the harder it is to work with it.
Karishma Pradham:
The idea is kind of keeping your toppings lighter so that you can really also just taste that crust and it doesn't get soggy. So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to prepare our sauce. Now, if you have this already pureed tomato sauce known as the passata, all you need to do, for both of these, we really only need about a cup of sauce total. So if you have the puree passata, what you're going to do is just pour it into a measuring cup or a bowl. Again, you just need one cup of it. And then all you're going to do to add to that is you're going to add a little bit of olive oil and a little bit of salt just to taste. That's for the passata, you don't need to blend it, obviously because it's already blended.
Karishma Pradham:
You're just going to be adding salt and a little bit of olive oil to taste. Now, if you are using a can of whole peeled tomatoes, for example, you can see, as I mentioned, there's these physical tomato pieces and there's also that kind of liquid. So what you're going to do is you're just going to blend the actual physical tomatoes. You don't want to blend the liquid that it's in because it's going to be too liquidy. It's going to be too runny. Again, you only need about a cup of these actual solid tomatoes for your sauce.
Karishma Pradham:
And so I would just put them in either a blender or a food processor, and you can just blend it until it just comes together, it's just barely homogenous. With a food processor, you can pulse it a few times. With a blender, just be careful not to over blend it, because again, it can get a little bit too liquidy if that's the case. So you're really just blending it for a few seconds just until it comes together. So I will demonstrate. I am actually going to just ... I don't have a full cup of whole peeled tomatoes, but I'll just show you what I would do. I just have my blender right here and I'm just going to, again, blend it a couple of times until the sauce kind of comes together.
Karishma Pradham:
And so you can see, again, you want to have kind of a thicker puree. You don't want it to be too liquidy. You want kind of the consistency of this passata or something kind of that looks like this, that's on the sticker side. If for any reason your sauce, sometimes just based on the tomatoes that you have, it can be a little bit more liquidy. So if when you blend your sauce, it does look more liquidy, what you can do is, if you have a fine sieve, you can strain your sauce over a bowl just to get rid of some of that really thin liquid. And so then you're left with a thicker puree.
Karishma Pradham:
That's what I would recommend if it comes out a little bit looser, but definitely don't over blend it. You don't need to blend it for more than a few seconds or so until it comes together. And so I have my passata. That I have in my cup. And I'm just going to, again, season it with a little bit of olive oil and a little bit of salt. And you're going to do the same thing if you have those whole peeled tomatoes, you're also going to season them with a little bit of olive oil and salt after you blend it up. Any questions on the sauce or any of the setup that we have so far? Anything about the dough or the oven before we kind of get the rest of the ingredients ready?
Rebecca Bachman:
No questions in the chat.
Karishma Pradham:
Okay, awesome. I assume people are probably going and making their sauce.
Rebecca Bachman:
I spoke too soon, how much oil and how much salt?
Karishma Pradham:
So this is really up to your taste preference. So, I would probably do just a sprinkle of salt and maybe a teaspoon of olive oil to start. But it's really up to your preference. You're really just adding a little bit of salt just to kind of bring out the flavor of the tomato and a little bit of oil as well just to cut the acidity.
Amy Cohen:
Let me see it. You do that. Yes of course.
Rebecca Bachman:
Next question in the chat is, would it be okay to add oregano or other spices to the sauce?
Karishma Pradham:
Yes. If you sauce to have oregano, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, I don't want you to feel limited by that. So, whatever you like you can add to the sauce. The only thing I would say is, traditionally, the sauce is just tomatoes, olive oil and salt. So if you want to keep it traditional, do that. But if you like garlic powder, if you want to make a little spicy, I often add that stuff as well every so often to myself. So feel free. Today is a lot less technical and precise, and yesterday is a lot more about experimenting and kind of using what you have.
Rebecca Bachman:
A couple of other questions. Is there a problem if the cheese is wet inside?
Karishma Pradham:
Oh, that's a good question. So if your cheese is wet inside, if it feels quite wet to the touch, what you can do is use a paper towel and just dab it. So you want to make sure that it is as dry as possible, just because if it is super wet, then it can kind of lose that liquid over your pizza and make it a little bit soggy. But some mozzarella just happens to be a little bit wetter, so just do your best to pat it dry. That's relevant.
Rebecca Bachman:
Is the one cup of sauce what is needed for two pizzas or just for one?
Karishma Pradham:
So one cup of sauce is for both pizzas. That's a good question.
Rebecca Bachman:
What is the purpose of adding olive oil to the sauce?
Karishma Pradham:
That's a good question. So the purpose of adding olive oil to the sauce is just to kind of remove some of the harsher acidity of the tomato sauce. So, by itself, especially this can also differ on the type of canned tomatoes that you have. It can be quite acidic. And so adding the olive oil, it gets a little bit of fat, a little bit richness that cuts that acidity. So for example, if you didn't have olive oil, you absolutely don't need to add it. I just think that it kind of makes the sauce a little bit tastier.
Rebecca Bachman:
Great. Thank you.
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. All right. So you have your one cup of sauce. And as I mentioned, the whole thing with the margarita pizza is that you're really using small amounts of the toppings, a lot less than you might think. And so that's also why you're really only using about cup of sauce for your pizza. So, onto the other topping, so we have our mozzarella. And so everyone might have different types of mozzarella. So there are mozzarella that are pack skin. So they're much firmer and they're a little bit saltier there's mozzarellas that are more liquidy. As I mentioned, if your mozzarella is liquidity, you can drain it a little bit in a fine sieve, or you can pat it down with paper towel or wrap it in a paper towel just to get some of that excess moisture out. And then what I like to do is the easiest thing for mozzarella is I really just take tickets, and I have a ball mozzarella, I just tear it into small pieces.
Karishma Pradham:
So these are just kind of bite sized pieces. They're probably between a half inch and an inch and a half long. I find that this is the easiest way to kind of cut up your mozzarella. Some people also to cut it into cubes. I think with the tearing, it also makes it a little bit easier. Again, you have less weight on your pizza with sort of a shred of mozzarella, as opposed to a chunkier cube. But I've done both of those. So, I think tearing is the easiest thing to do. But some people also just to slice it, so totally up to you. And then if you have some basil leaves and then the last piece is just, I marked this as optional, but if you have any sort of pecorino cheese or Parmigiano-Reggiano, just having a handful of freshly grated cheese that you can put on top of your pizza when it comes out is also a really nice add.
Karishma Pradham:
And then we'll also put just a little drizzle of olive oil on top of our pizza before we bake it. But again, the big kind of key items that we need is our blended sauce, our mozzarella cheese that's torn into shreds or sliced. And then our basil, if you have it and a little bit of cheese. So I'll give everyone a couple of minutes to get your toppings ready. What I like to do is I like to put them in these cup holes, if you have them or just on a plate, so you have everything ready to go, and when you're building your pizza, you can just take something from the plate and really easily and quickly put it on. So, I have my toppings and I have my sauce, so I'm almost ready to go and get my pizza stretched. And if you have any other toppings, if you have any precooked meat, pepperoni, you can add other toppings as well. I highly recommend that. And especially you're making both pizzas today. You can use whatever toppings you have at home.
Rebecca Bachman:
Another came up, do you chop the basil or you use that whole?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So for the basil, if they're really big pieces, you can chop it. I would do it right at the last minute so that the basil doesn't turn, it can sort of turn black. But if they're smaller pieces, you can just keep them whole, and the thing with the Basil as well is that we are going to put it on our pizza after our pizza comes out of the oven. Because we are using our home oven and it's going to take a little bit of time for our pizza to cook. By the time your pizza is cooked, if you put the basil on while it's cooking in the oven, it can kind of dry out and burn. So I recommend holding off to put the basil on top as a garnish once it comes out of the oven. And again, if they're smaller pieces you can just use them whole, for larger pieces, you can cut them.
Rebecca Bachman:
And can you use onion or mushrooms as toppings?
Karishma Pradham:
Yes, absolutely. So any toppings that you want, you can feel free to use. For something onions or mushrooms, you may want to actually precook them, just so that depending on how long it takes, so for example, in my oven, it only takes about four, five minutes max to cook my pizza. And so my vegetables may not be fully cooked. So I prefer to pre cook them, especially if they're wetter vegetables that release liquid, precook them, get all that liquid out and then top your pizza with your already precooked vegetables.
Karishma Pradham:
So, I will get everyone a minute, but I'm going to go ahead and kind of get set up with the dough portion of getting my Joe ready to be stretched. So, I think the easiest thing that will kind of make it easier for everyone else to follow along is I'm going to show you how I stretch, hop and bake my first pizza. And so you can do this while you're getting the rest of your ingredients ready. And then when I make my second pizza, we can kind of do it along together.
Karishma Pradham:
That way you're able to absorb the information from the first piece. You can ask any questions before you go ahead and do it yourself. And the biggest thing about this portion is that everyone kind of has different equipment. So some people might have a pizza stone, some people might just be using a baking sheet. So I'll talk through kind of what you do if you have different equipment, but this would be a good time while I'm doing this first round and you're observing, if you have questions about your equipment and how to use it, feel free to enter those into the chat.
Karishma Pradham:
So I have my pizza dough ball and what I'm going to do is depending on what you're using, I have this pizza peel here, it's a wooden pizza peel. You can also use a metal one. This peel is a way you can build your pizza on it and use it to shimmy your pizza into the oven. Now, if you don't have a peel, you can use a piece of parchment paper. And the basic difference between the two of these is that if you're using a parchment paper, you can actually directly build your pizza on the parchment. And so you don't have to worry as much about your pizza dough sticking to the parchment or getting it on and off. And so you don't have to worry as much about using the right amount of flour, checking that it's sticking. I'll show you kind of how this looks like, but when you're building it on top of the parchment, that parchment with the pizza will go directly into the oven.
Karishma Pradham:
So you don't have to worry about if your dough is stuck to the parchment. With a peel, you have to make sure that you have enough flour, and again, that your dough is not too wet, that you're not putting too many toppings on. Otherwise, your pizza can stick to the peel. So when you're using a peel, it's really important that you keep it well floured and that you check every so often that it's not sticking. So I'm going end this demonstration kind of show you how both of those works. Well, with the parchment and with the peel, I do recommend getting a bowl of flour that you can dip your pizza in and on both sides to make sure it's coded, again, that really helps, it's more for the peel, but it really helps to make sure that your pizza is not going to stick to the peel.
Karishma Pradham:
And so what I have here is just a mix of the 00 flour and I also have some semolina flour. Some people will use corn meals, some people will use just regular flour. So whatever you have is totally fine. If you only have all purpose flour, you can just use all purpose flour. The reason I use the mix of both is that semolina flour is kind of formula in that it's a little bit more coarse. And so it doesn't cake onto your pizza in the same way, versus something like 00 flour is really nice that it really helps eliminate sticking, but if you put too much on, then your pizza can taste very floury. That's kind of why I to use the mix. And if you are a peel today and you're a beginner to using a peel, I definitely recommend using more flour than you might think, just to start so that you have kind of a baseline.
Karishma Pradham:
And the worst thing is to have your pizza stick to your peel. So, use a little bit more, keep checking that it's not sticking. And then as you get more comfortable, you can learn to use less flour. As I mentioned, I'm going to first dip my pizza on both sides into the flour. And the biggest thing that you want to make sure at this process is you've kind of waited, again, for 24 hours for your dough to rise. You've formed it into these really nice dough balls. So the worst thing that could happen is if you pull it out and as you're pulling it out, you squeeze it or pinch it and it deflates. So, be really cautious here. You can take your time to very gently lift your dough out of your container. So you can see, I'm just putting my fingers under the dough very gently, all around just to make sure that when I actually pull it out, it doesn't stick to any corner.
Karishma Pradham:
And then I'm just going to very gently, again, lift it up and dip it in the flour on both sides. So you can see that I dipped it in my flour. It's nicely coated on both sides. And then if I'm using the parchment, I'll put it on that parchment. If I'm going to use a peel, which I'll sort of show later in this process. But for a peel, just make sure, again, that you're flouring your peel nicely as well, in addition to your pizza dough ball. But for parchment, what you're going to do is first, you're going to make a rim with your pizza, and you'll also do this if you have your peel as well.
Karishma Pradham:
This process is really we're kind of creating our crust and then going to stretch the pizza. So, the biggest thing is whether you're on parchment or peel, you're going to first form a rim with your fingers to form kind of this outer crust. And so what you're essentially saying is, "I'm creating a barrier. I'm not going to touch this outer crust so it's going to be nice and bubbly," and we will then sort of press out all the air in the center. So we have an outer crust that's thicker and then an inner cross that's thinner. So, what I do is I just gently poke my fingers down into the dough all around, and about a half to two thirds of an inch from the edge of the dough. And I'm just, again, creating little depressions all around the dough. I don't know if you can see. You can see, I kind of, with my finger, just created a rim by pressing down and poking in the circular formation.
Rebecca Bachman:
We have one question, Karishma, in the chat. What do you do if your dough stretches or breaks if you've gotten this far in the process and that happened?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah, that's a good question. I'm wondering if this is, when it's out of the container? You're taking it out of the container or you're already stretching it. If your dough breaks when you're taking it out of the container, you can kind of just try to touch it up. Don't worry about it too much-
Rebecca Bachman:
Yeah. From taking it out of the container.
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. Don't worry about it too much. Maybe I can take a look
Rebecca Bachman:
Ian, if you want to hold your dough up for Karishma, go for it.
Ian:
I was following orders, I'm not going to do it until the second pizza.
Karishma Pradham:
Okay, yeah.
Ian:
I'm just anticipating failure.
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. That's a good question. And then be as gentle as possible, if it does happen to kind of get pinched or stretch or break, you can kind of do your best to compact it a little bit, especially before it goes into that flour and you douse it, you can just kind of compact it back into that circular shape. That's one thing that you can do. But yeah, definitely don't worry too much, if that happens, it's okay. Your pizza doesn't have to be a perfect circle. It can be a rectangle, it can be a different shape, so don't worry too much.
Karishma Pradham:
But the other thing I was going to say is, what happens if you pinch it a little bit or scratches is most likely it'll look mostly like a circle, but there might be one part of it that feels a little thinner. So what you're gonna want to do is just make sure that when you're stretching your pizza, that you're not overstretching that part that's already thinner. So the best thing is basically just making sure that you stretch the other parts and kind of avoiding stretching the thinner part as much so that it doesn't rip or tear. If that makes sense.
Karishma Pradham:
So, I have my rim created and now you can see, I have an outer crust and I have this inner piece. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to push down into this middle section. And as I'm doing this, you will feel that there will be some air bubbles coming out. You can feel that you're pushing that air out of the center of the dough. And some of that air will then kind of move into the crest and make your crust a little bit bigger. And some of that air will also just be stretching the pizza. I'm just using my three middle fingers and just gently pressing down into the center of the crust and that's already stretching my pizza very naturally.
Karishma Pradham:
And so then once your ... That middle section, it doesn't need to be super thin right now because we're going to actually fully stretch it, but you just want to kind of make sure that you're pressing out most of the air. Once you do that, the way that you'll stretch it on your parchment is you will essentially take your two hands and you're going to form a triangle with your hands, and your hands are going to kind of stretch the dough in opposite directions. So, I have my triangle hands and what I'm going to do is I'm just going to stretch the dough out. And so what I'm doing is I'm putting this triangle down and I'm stretching in opposite directions with my fingers and I'm rotating this parchment.
Karishma Pradham:
So I'll show you again, I'm basically putting this triangle down, stretching the dough in opposite directions to stretch it and then rotating. And so essentially you're going to keep stretching your dough on your parchment until it's probably between 10 and 12 inches. So if you want a thicker dough you can leave it at 10 inches, a thinner dough is 12 inches. And so that's really it when you do the parchment is you just kind of use this triangle formation and stretch the dough outwards in opposite directions and continue rotating. So you're doing that evenly. That's the parchment.
Karishma Pradham:
Now, if I was going to do it on a peel, you're going to do the exact same thing where you create that rim on the peel, and you also press down all the air in the middle of the dough. But with a peel, again, as you're doing this, you want to make sure you just ... I'm essentially just shimmying my dough back and forth on the peel, and I can see that it's moving and it's not sticking. If I notice at this point that it's sticking, I can add a little bit more flour to the bottom of my peel to kind of make sure that it's not sticking. And so you can just very gently try to lift up the part that's sticking and make sure that you add a little bit more flour. At this point, this is the easiest kind of place to continue to add flour to make sure that it doesn't stick.
Karishma Pradham:
Once you add the topping, it's a little harder. So just make sure it's generously floured and make sure every 30 seconds or so you're checking and making sure that your pizza can move and stretch on the peel. Now, for the peel, you can actually use your hands and pick up the dough and stretch it. With that, essentially what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick up my dough and I'm going to gently stretch it with my knuckles and then rotate. So I'm being really gentle here. Being gentler and while you're getting used to it will help ensure that you're not tearing the dough, but I'm essentially just holding my knuckles in the kind of middle center of the dough at the top and stretching across gently and then rotating. So what that kind of looks in this pack view is I'm holding my dough this with my knuckles and it's stretching outwards and rotating.
Karishma Pradham:
And so that's how you would stretch your dough on the peel. You can also use a triangle method, but I find that the triangle method is a little bit easier on your parchment and your dough, the other side, other than just kind of the size of your dough to know that it's ready is that once it starts looking a little bit translucent, that means that the inner part is thin enough. Once it gets translucent, if you keep stretching it, it's going to tear. That's a sign as well that you're done stretching your pizza. This is kind of the two ways that I stretch my pizza on the parchment. Again, I use the triangle method and then on the peel, I pick it up with my hands and very gently stretch the dough. Do we have questions on this portion?
Rebecca Bachman:
There are a bunch of questions. First question is what if the dough didn't fully expand outwards because it was in a bowl that it rose, but it wasn't necessarily as flat and large?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah, that's a good question. So I wouldn't worry too much, in that case, it'll probably be a little bit thicker. So depending on how, for example, if you put your pizza dough in a container this narrow, the really big thing that you want to make sure is you're going to have to be a little bit more gentle when you're taking it out just because you have less room almost to take it out, but then if that's the case, it's fine. Then you're just going to have to do a little bit more of an air pressing in that when you're pressing out the middle to ensure that it's stretching out as much as a dough that kind of would stretch out on a plate or something. But I've worked with both dough. It was like when it's really well stretched versus when it's kind of tighter and you just have to do a little bit more work if it's in a narrower container.
Rebecca Bachman:
Cool. Thank you for that. So, we've got two questions that are in the same category. So I'll ask you both. What if it tears and you get a break in the dough? And then another question. I'm asking you all of the questions about tear soup. So what if it tears and you get a break? I have cracks between the rim of the pizza and the base. Is that okay? And what if your dough rips as you're stretching it on the peel?
Karishma Pradham:
Okay. All right. So I'll handle the rips, tears questions. So first of all, I want everyone to know that it's totally normal for your dough to rip and tear, especially if you are less comfortable doing this. It's something that just happens. So, don't worry too much. The biggest thing that you want to do is you can essentially put your dough up. So, let's say that I had a tear, for example, in the middle of my dough, just pretend where my finger is there's a tear. What I do is I just pick up the two parts of the dough next to it and just pinch it together to kind of seal that tear. That's the first thing I would do. And then depending on how big it is, you can also put a little bit more flour on the top and on the bottom of the pizza to make sure that you kind of, again, sealing that tear.
Karishma Pradham:
So, first, pinch it and then put a little bit more flour dough. That's the biggest thing. And also make sure, in that section that you have the tear that you don't overload it again with a ton of toppings or a ton of weight, especially if it's a really tiny tear, you can even almost avoid that section and put very little, maybe no sauce or something in that one section to avoid that. If you're building it on parchment, you don't have to worry as much because, again, it's going in the oven with the parchment, but if you get a tear on your peel, you definitely want to make sure that you do this full patching, pinching the dough together, putting the flour on the top and the bottom. And you'll know if it hasn't been sealed because when you shimmy me your pizza, it'll get stuck there, so you're going to have to add a little bit more flour to ensure that it doesn't do that.
Karishma Pradham:
But yeah, don't worry too much. I mean, it is something that can happen. So again, take this day is a day to experiment. And you can catch up a tear. I wouldn't worry too much. And worst case, if you're stretching it and you got a tear, the other thing that you kind of want to make sure is that it's really hard to keep stretching it because you can often reopen that tear again. So hopefully at that point, your dough is thin enough. But if not, you definitely want to make sure you patch it up well and be really careful if you're trying to stretch it.
Rebecca Bachman:
One more question. Oh, a few more questions. Is it okay if the dough has olive oil? Obviously, it was in the bowl overnight and the bowl had olive oil in it, what if the dough still has a bunch of oil at the surface, is that okay?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So, if your dough is ... I guess, if it feels like it's drowning in olive oil, you can just pat it down really gently with a kitchen towel or something. But I've never done that before. What I do is by dipping it in the flour in both sides, it kind of coats that oil. So I wouldn't worry again too much, but if it does feel it's drowning, you can sort of pat it and remove some of that oil.
Rebecca Bachman:
Using the triangle method, the rim of the pizza keeps disappearing. Any tips?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So first of all, it's not really that big of a deal if your rim is disappearing necessarily, the way that your crust rises is both from stretching your dough and stretching out that middle, but also putting weight in the middle and putting toppings on. So even if, for example you pressed down some of your rim, it's still going to actually rise a little bit just because it doesn't have that weight of the toppings. But just if you're using the triangle method, I would just make sure that your hands are not fully on the crust, try to get them kind of close to the center as possible, and that can kind of help. But if you look at my dough, there isn't a super defined rim anymore. It has stretched out. So don't worry too much. You're not looking necessarily for a really, really defined rim.
Rebecca Bachman:
Those were all the questions in the chat at this point.
Karishma Pradham:
Okay, awesome. So I'm going to show the next phase, and again, I'm just double checking, making sure my dough is not sticking. I'll put a little bit more flour on my peel. So I just lift up the bottom of my pizza and put the flour down, and then I'll put my sauce on. Again, you're really not going to need more than probably a quarter cup of your sauce on this pizza. In fact, I probably only use two or three tablespoons to keep it light. And so what I'll do is I'll put my sauce in the center of the pizza and then I'll use the back of my spoon. Or if you have a small ladle, you can do this. And I just move my sauce and spread it out in concentric circles all the way up to the crust.
Karishma Pradham:
That's my sauce. And you can see, it's not fully dowsed in sauce. There are some kind of areas that there's a little bit, it's less dispersed. Again, you only need really a couple of tablespoons, but you can use up to four tablespoons if you like. And again, I'm checking and making sure that my pizza is not sticking to my peel. So, then I'll arrange my cheese. And again, with the cheese, you really don't need too much cheese either. I'm just going to put some shreds here and there.
Karishma Pradham:
And the other thing I was going to say about the cheese is that depending on how long it takes your pizza to cook in the oven, sometimes your cheese can spread out a lot. And so if you are someone that really likes having kind of defined pieces of cheese on your pizza, you can put some more cheese on your pizza halfway through, so you have some that's fully spread out and then some that's in these little chunks. And then I'm just going to put a little bit, really small drizzle of olive oil on top and that's it. Again, my basil is going to go on my pizza at the end after it finishes cooking and it comes out of the oven, and then I have my pizza ready. I'm going to do a final check. I have my sauce, I have my cheese. And I'm going to launch it in my oven.
Rebecca Bachman:
So, we've got a couple more questions, is now a good time?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. Let me just quickly talk through the oven situation and then we can do some questions. So, I'm going to offer a couple of different ways that you can cook your pizza. I have my pizza in the oven, on my middle rack, it's cooking. And it'll probably take some of the equipment that I'm using about two to three minutes before the bottom crust is browned. If you're using a baking sheet or something, that might take a little bit longer, that could take five or six minutes. There's two options, so you can basically cook your pizza, again, on the parchment for the whole time. That could take five or six or seven minutes until it's browned. Sometimes if you broil your pizza, you can get a nice, browner, bubbly crust on top.
Karishma Pradham:
So what I do is I transfer my pizza from my middle rack to the top rack of my oven. And I broil my pizza for about 30 seconds to a minute to get the top really browned, but you totally don't have to do this. It can be a little bit tricky to transfer it to another rack. And so what I would recommend is, again, option one is that you just cook your pizza directly on the bake method and it can take anywhere between four minutes to six or seven minutes, depending on how brown do you your pizza. If you want that really nice brown top, you can transfer it to the top rack and turn your boiler on and broil it for 30 seconds to one minute. And if you don't have a peel, the way that you can transfer your pizza is you can either use tongs or a metal spatula and transfer it to the top rack.
Karishma Pradham:
And the other thing that you want to make sure is if you're broiling your pizza, you're going to want to take your parchment out. So again, you can use tongs or something like that to just quickly remove your parchment and transfer it. That's a little bit more complicated, but I wanted to offer kind of the world of options that you can have to get the pizza to be what you want it to. But the easiest way is just to bake your pizza on the middle of rack or on the bottom rack for somewhere between four, seven, eight minutes until it's nicely browned on the bottom.
Rebecca Bachman:
Awesome. So a few questions. How about for baking sheets, folk? So if you're using the parchment method, how do you transfer it to the baking sheet? What's the process there?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So if you're using a baking sheet or you don't have a peel or anything like that, what I to do is I'll just put the parchment on top, just imagine that this peel is a cutting board. So I'll just put my parchment with my pizza on top of a cutting board or something and then I basically just slide the, the pizza with the parchment into the oven. The thing that you want to make sure is for example, just pretend that this is a baking sheet or anytime you're really sliding your pizza into the oven, what you want to make sure is that, say this is my cutting board with the parchment on top and my pizza, you want to make sure that you don't slide it at an angle, because if you do, your toppings will fall off.
Karishma Pradham:
You want to make sure that your cutting board or whatever you're using is really parallel as much as possible. You can have a slight angle so that you can shimmy it off. But a very slight to parallel angle with your baking sheet, make sure that it's fully above the sheet. So again, you don't have half your pizza hanging off, and then you can basically just, again, kind of shimmy your parchment with your pizza on top of your baking sheet.
Rebecca Bachman:
Great. Another question. I've always coated my pizza with some olive oil before the sauce. Is that a yes and no? An option?
Karishma Pradham:
Yes, that can be an option. Just give me one sec because I'm just going to transfer my pizza to the broil and then I'll answer that question. So, oil. Yes, you can. I know some people do put oil on the bottom before they sauce. What I would imagine that does, is it probably, maybe gets a little bit of browning to that portion of the crust between the sauce in the bottom. So you can absolutely do that. I tend to do it on top just to give kind of the sauce itself a little bit mixed in with all those, get a little more flavor, but I know definitely people put it on the bottom too. I don't think that there's necessarily a right way, just the preferred way that you like.
Rebecca Bachman:
And if I want to put black olives on it or any other toppings on it, when do you put them on?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah, I would put any sort of toppings before it goes into the oven. So with the cheese and everything that,
Rebecca Bachman:
Does the order matter? If you do sauce, topping cheese, what's your methodology?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So when I'm baking it, honestly, the way I feel like I spread it out, it's not like there's one thing on top of the other. Generally, I think I put cheese on the bottom and toppings on the top, but order is also, again, up to you. But I can put cheese on top and then toppings over that. Just take the pizza out.
Rebecca Bachman:
One other question, if you're using the baking sheet, do you need to code it with anything nonstick or just leave it as it is?
Karishma Pradham:
No, you shouldn't need to code it with anything. I would also say for the baking sheet method, using parchment is probably the best thing just because depending on the size of your baking sheet, even kind of a peel, it can be a little bit tricky to shimmy your peel onto a baking sheet. So, definitely if you're parchment, you absolutely don't need to coat your baking sheet in anything. Awesome, okay. And then the other thing I was just going to say was, I mentioned when you're shimming your pizza into the oven, you really don't want to do it at an angle. So, I just want to show as well for the peel, same thing. If you have your peel, you want to make sure that it's directly on top of your piece of stone or whatever you're using. And you're just going to do kind of a light shimmy once it's directly on top. Avoid doing the angle because that's sort of how your pizza can fall over itself.
Karishma Pradham:
All right. So I'm going to show you my pizza. So you can see that it's cooked in the oven. It took about four or five minutes. It was three minutes on the baking steel that I used, that gets the brown, the bottom of the pizza, nice and brown. And then I finish it under the broiler for about one minute, which got the top nice and bubbly. That's kind of the extent that you can go, but this happens when you're using all of the best equipment, when you're using the broiler and a bake, so definitely don't feel you need to hack your oven right now to do the most extensive things. If you just bake your pizza for about somewhere between four and seven minutes, it's still going come out really nice and good.
Rebecca Bachman:
Another question. Can I put the pizza with the baking sheet inside my cast iron skillet?
Karishma Pradham:
Okay. So if you're going to use a cast iron skillet, if your oven is already really hot and pre-heated, you may not want to do this, but what I would recommend is actually using your skillet upside down. And so that way, you don't have as much trouble getting your pizza onto it. So, I'm just gonna show you. So, this is what I would recommend, preheating your oven with the cast iron upside down, and then it has a flat surface. And I would just put your pizza, if you have parchment paper, I would build your pizza on a parchment and put it on top of this cast iron directly. You don't need both a baking sheet and a cast iron.
Rebecca Bachman:
How long do you think I need to bake it if it's on a pizza stone?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So, what I would recommend because everyone's oven and equipment is different, I would just recommend, again, maybe using some tongs or a metal spatula to check under your pizza, probably, after the three minute mark on your stone. It should be nice and brown, but it might take another minute or so. And to get the top brown, if you're not broiling, it could take another couple of minutes.
Rebecca Bachman:
My outdoor grill gets a lot hotter than my oven. Any tips for cooking on the grill?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So, I have actually never done this myself, but I know that people that use their grills and they'll actually have, I think your pizza stone, depending on which one you have can actually go onto the grill. So I think what a lot of people do is really similar, they'll preheat their pizza stone on their grill. And then they'll put their pizza directly on the stone. And so that's the best way to get your pizza up on a flat surface. And I've heard really great things about it, but I haven't done it myself.
Rebecca Bachman:
Are there any changes that you recommend if I use a pan pizza style?
Karishma Pradham:
Okay. I'm wondering if this question is saying if I want to make their pan pizza or if I'm using the cast iron pan pizza?
Rebecca Bachman:
I'm not sure, but we'll see. Not a cast iron.
Karishma Pradham:
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, if you're using a pan pizza method, so you want to kind of have either a thicker crust or something and you're building it in your pan, what I've done in the past is, it was two things, there's really thin crust pizza and it's like bar pizza. And so what you can do is if you have your pizza pan, when you take your pizza dough out of the fridge and it comes to room temperature, you can actually just spread it onto that pan, so it spreads all over. And then you can just put your sauce and toppings on top and put your pan with your pizza directly into the oven. If you were doing it on a cast iron pan, for example, and doing a similar pan pizza style, what people typically do is they'll preheat their cast iron pan and put it on a gas stove or electric stove or whatever, and then they'll click the dough onto the hot pan, spread it out and then put their sauce and toppings on and then finish cooking it in the oven. Hopefully, one of those two responses was helpful.
Rebecca Bachman:
We got another question. If you want to not make your own dough, is there a store-bought dough you like in a pinch?
Karishma Pradham:
Yes. I really like the Whole Foods' pizza dough. And I would just recommend looking at when you buy the dough, it's often much bigger than a 12 inch pizza, for example. So you'll sometimes need to divide it into two pizza dough balls. I would use the same balling method that we used yesterday, bowl your dough and let it sit out at room temperature for several hours, which will help ensure that it stretches properly and it's relaxed.
Speaker 1:
Here's my pizza.
Rebecca Bachman:
Oh, beautiful.
Speaker 1:
I mean, it's not brand, I didn't do the broiler.
Karishma Pradham:
Oh, it looks like a perfect circle.
Speaker 1:
So, I'll try it.
Karishma Pradham:
And you can always leave it in the oven a little bit longer to brown as well. Eventually, even leaving it in the oven longer will brown the top too.
Rebecca Bachman:
If people wish to make one of their balls of dough into a pizza tonight and then freeze the other one, how do you recommend freezing it so that you maintain it in the bowl?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah, that's a good question. I personally do not freeze my pizza dough because I think it changes the texture a little bit, but I have done it. So I would just recommend putting in an airtight plastic bag or something like that, and then you can put it in your freezer and when you take it out, just make sure then you're going to meet a longer deep frost period. So, you're probably going to have it probably going to take several hours to deep frost. And I typically just defrost it in that bag. So I can demonstrate my second pizza as other people are making theirs.
Rebecca Bachman:
One very key question. Please clarify if making the pizza on parchment, what is the parchment sitting on if you don't have a peel or pizza stone or steel in your oven? So, if you're making it on parchment, what is it then going on in there?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So, if it's not going on a steel or stone, it can go on the back of a cast iron, an upside down cast iron pan or an upside down baking sheet. So, I will just continue demonstrating kind of this next pizza, but feel free to keep asking questions. I'll be doing a little less talking, just more demonstrating so I can answer questions as I'm doing this.
Rebecca Bachman:
And as Karishma is demonstrating, and I know that a few people have finished their pizzas. So, we'd love you to stay and make your second one, if you wish to go eat dinner, that's also totally understandable. I just want to remind you all to take a picture of your pizza and post it on social media tag The Home Cooking Collective. Use the #brandeiswomen, feel free to tag any of the Brandeis social media channels, as well as if you're a member of the Brandeis women Facebook group, feel free to post your pictures there. We would love to see your pizzas. And obviously, the class is not done, but I know that some of your pizzas are out of the oven.
Karishma Pradham:
And also after you make your first pizza, if you have questions around like, "I want it to be more brown, I want it to be more bubbly," I'm also happy to troubleshoot with you. Some of that kind of requires just playing around with your oven a little bit, leaving your pizza in longer, so happy to assist there.
Rebecca Bachman:
Another question to follow up on the parchment, if you're making your pizza on the parchment paper, when you're transferring it to the oven, what are you putting the parchment paper on so that it's not flimsy?
Karishma Pradham:
Oh, got it. So you're going to put your parchment paper on the fittest cutting board that you have. So mine is quite thick. But you're going to put the pizza with the parchment paper on top of a cutting board, and then you're just going to gently shimmy your pizza with the parchment into the oven off the cutting board. That's kind of the easiest way to do it. The other way that you can actually do it is if there are two of you, each person can lift one side of the parchment with pizza on it and just put it directly in the oven. But the easiest thing is honestly, just a cutting board, just put it on a cutting board and shimmy it on top of whatever you're using, a baking sheet into the oven.
Rebecca Bachman:
If you are baking two pizzas at once, does it take longer or it's the same process?
Karishma Pradham:
So, I've actually never baked two at the same time, I typically do one at a time because I think it's a little bit easier to control. I would say it could take a little bit longer because you have both of them in the oven. So it might take you 50% longer to have them at the same time.
Rebecca Bachman:
Another question, if I put my pizza on parchment paper and inside the cast iron skillet, but the edges are not browning, what can I do?
Karishma Pradham:
Okay. That's a good question. So, I think it kind of depends on if it's the bottom browning and the top not browning. So if the bottom is not browning, you're probably just going to have to leave it in the oven in that same place for a little bit longer. If you're not seeing the edges browning, again, you can leave it for another couple minutes or so, and it can start browning the edges. But the biggest thing is if you're able to put your pizza under the broiler, that's the best way to get it to brown. Putting the pizza in the skillet does walk some of that heat. So that could be why it's happening as well. And the last piece too is if you're able to take the parchment out, so once the pizza has cooked for a couple of minutes, the bottom of the crust should have hardened a little bit. So if you're able to kind of just use tongs and take the parchment out, that can also help the edges brown a little bit more.
Rebecca Bachman:
Another question, how do you make certain that you don't overcook your pizza?
Karishma Pradham:
Okay. That's a great question. Essentially, the longer your pizza sits in the oven, the more it dries out. And obviously if you put your pizza in the oven for one minute, it's going to be still very wet. So, I would say definitely use a combination of time and what you're seeing. So if your pizza has been in the oven for eight, nine, 10 minutes and you notice that it looks quite rounded the edges, or it starts to look a little bit crackery, that means that it's probably over cooked. But I would say anything under seven minutes or so it should be okay. But it is going to be crispier at seven minutes than it would be at four or five.
Rebecca Bachman:
You've answered all the questions in the chat so far.
Karishma Pradham:
Great. Hopefully, I know there's a lot going on here, but hopefully it's a fun experience for everyone to experiment and play around with. The more pieces you make, the more practice you get. And so you can try to really hone and perfect the pizza making skills.
Rebecca Bachman:
While you're shaping your pizza, Karishma, can you remind everyone what temperature the oven is supposed to be at?
Karishma Pradham:
Yes. The oven is supposed to be essentially as hot as it can possibly get. So my oven goes to 550. Some people's go to 500, but you're really trying to get it as hot as possible. The hotter your oven is the less time it takes to cook and get those browned edges without drying out the pizza. When we were talking to Rebecca earlier, she mentioned that her baking sheet, for example, specifically has a max temperature, that's the only other thing I would check. If you're using a standard baking sheet or cast iron pan, you can have it that hot. But if you're using any sort of specialized equipment, just double check that, your oven can go that high.
Rebecca Bachman:
If you're making one pizza and freezing the dough, can you freeze half of the dough before it rises? Or should you let it rise and then freeze?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. So I would recommend letting your dough rise in the fridge for that 24 hour rise and then freezing it, so then when you take it out of the freezer, all it has to do is fully defrost.
Rebecca Bachman:
And then another question for you, Karishma, what's the best pizza you've ever had and where, or is it one you made?
Karishma Pradham:
Oh, that's a great question. Well, the best pizza, one of the best pizzas I've ever had was in Naples, Italy. It was just a very classic Neapolitan margarita pizza and it was absolutely delicious. That one was up there. I also do really love Roberta's Pizza in Brooklyn, which this recipe is adapted from. It's a really nice thin crust pizza. And I recently got an outdoor pizza oven, so I've been making pizzas there and that oven gets to 900, 1,000 degrees. So, makes some really, really good pizzas. Are there any other questions on troubleshooting or anything like that?
Rebecca Bachman:
I think that you've answered everything so far in the chat, but as soon as I say that, more questions appear, so we'll give it a couple seconds.
Karishma Pradham:
Sounds good.
Rebecca Bachman:
People want to come over to your house after the pandemic for some pizza.
Karishma Pradham:
Anyone is welcome after the pandemic, for sure. Actually, it's really funny because since it's an outdoor pizza oven, I've been able to have friends over for the last few months, just outside in our backyard to make pizzas. It's one of the only things that we can do.
Rebecca Bachman:
Can you talk a little bit more about other classes that you offer and how can people find them?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah, so I offer a number of group and private workshops. So for my more public food group workshops, I currently have an upcoming workshop later this month that's on Indian cooking. So, it's understanding spices, we'll make a dal together. We'll make some raita. That's a basics to Indian cooking. If you've ever been intimidated by that, I'll probably have a couple more Indian classes. And then I currently also have a bunch of private workshops. So, I do focaccia, I make pasta, things like that.
Rebecca Bachman:
Another question, in the past, I've had trouble with under cooked crusts where it looks cooked on the bottom, but in the middle, it's still wet and raw. What are some of the common causes of this?
Karishma Pradham:
Yeah. That kind of depends, I would say if your crust is too thick, then it'll be harder to get that middle cooked. So the thinner pizza is less time, it's going to kind of cook through in the middle. That could be one thing. If you were making a thick crust pizza, it's going to take a longer time in the oven and that's also trying to figure out the best temperature. So, if you are making a really thick pizza, if you were making a one inch pizza, like a Sicilian pizza, it's a little bit trickier to use it at higher temperature because it might cook the outside faster than the inside. So, it's a little bit of a combination of what temperature you're using, how thick your pizza dough is.
Karishma Pradham:
The other thing is if you have a ton of sauce and toppings that can also make your pizza almost taste a little soggy and it's wet in the middle, but the outer parts might be browner. And I would also just say, if you liked the pizza making process, having something a pizza stone in your oven or having a pizza peel can make the process a lot easier, so that you're not playing around with parchment or moving things from one rack to the other. That's what I would also recommend is if you really liked this process, just having some of the right equipment can also make it a lot easier for the process too.
Rebecca Bachman:
We're getting a lot of thank yous. We're mindful of time that everyone had carved out an hour for this awesome class, and we wanted to thank Karishma for leading us through this two day workshop series, teaching us all how to make pizza. Again, please follow her on Instagram. Look at her website, The Home Cooking Collective, sign up for more of her classes. She's a great, incredibly, knowledgeable resource in the culinary world. And we're lucky to have her as part of the Brandeis community.