Bad Pizza

I love to cook.  Some people tell me I am a good cook - people like Miriam, who love every dinner and lavish on the praise.  My husband usually likes the food too.  Even the women who pay me to prepare freezer meals for them once a week think I do a great job.

There are some things I have not mastered yet.

Homemade pizza is one of them.

I know my problem.  It is the crust.
I can do sauce.  I can do cheese.  I can do toppings.

I can make the pizza crust dough!  (or rather, my 30-year-old hand-me-down Bosch mixer can make pizza crust dough)

I cannot roll the dough thin enough to make a good pizza.

I think I roll it thin, slap on the toppings fast and get it into the oven, but it always rises too high while baking.

Let me explain.  I made dough last week and divided the dough between my two stoneware pans.  I rolled it out, added sauce, cheese, and toppings, and got ready to place the first pan in the oven.

When I opened the door to the oven, I was greeted by a grey cloud of smoke!
Oops!  I forgot that small spill from the day before.

Knowing what happens when clouds of smoke drift through my house, I ran to the end of the hall to close all the bedroom doors before the fire alarms noticed.  Then, I opened all the windows and turned on fans.

Finally, I placed the first pan into the oven to bake. (more smoke) I figured that Papa Murphey's pizza bakes for about 15 minutes in my oven and set the timer accordingly.  After 15 minutes, I checked the bottom of the crust (golden brown) and took the pizza out of the oven.

Problem #1: dinner was already 45 minutes late.
Problem #2: the pizza looked like a pillow.  The crust was 1" thick on the sides, and rounded on top.
Problem #3: my upstairs is full of tear producing smoke.  (nothing dark and black - just a little pea soup-ish)

The family sat down to dinner and I handed out pieces of pizza anyway.  One bite was all it took to discover the dough was not cooked in the middle.  Yuck!  I gathered up everyone's slices and re-assembled the pizza and put it back into the oven.  (exit more smoke) The second pizza was already in, so now we had two pizza's baking and it was going to take a while.

So, the kids enjoyed an "appetizer" of Root Beer.  They think having pizza means they get to have soda too.  They downed a whole 2 liter bottle at once.

While the kids drank their root beer, I some quick searching resulted in some strawberries from the fridge.  Soon the kids had the "fruit course."

When they finished the strawberries, I served the first pizza.  Again.  It was cooked enough in the middle now, but the top was quite toasty. (but not really "burned" yet)  And it was still really really thick.  Kids ate it anyway - and Miriam said it was "O.K."

By the time the second pizza was out of the oven, half the kids had had enough (thick crust fills them up fast!) and left the table.

sigh.

On the bright side, a nice breeze picked up after dinner and moved the smoke out of the house!  It is amazing how fast the breeze can clear the air, when a fan on high barely makes a dent.