Some time ago, Bethia asked if I used cast iron for cooking pizza a la Heston Blumenthal. Blumenthal's pizza may be good, but the method is too clumsy for me to consider when cooking for a crowd.
The valuable nugget I did glean from this is the possibility of baking pizza on cast iron. What a wonderful, buy-it-once-per-lifetime cooking surface. While there exists a 15" round cast iron pan at Amazon that makes me salivate excessively, I found a cheaper griddle for a few bucks the other day at the thrift store to experiment with. My first pizzas on this were going to be wispy thin pizzas inspired by California Pizza Kitchen (love their pies - think CPK will give me ad money now??). Made some dough [water 300 g, salt 5 g, sugar 10 g, olive oil 30 g, yeast 1 pkg, unbleached white 300g, kneaded in a machine, placed in fridge for the week]. A few hours later, I pulled 100 grams of the dough to make a couple afternoon snacks.
Preheated oven to 450F, rounded the balls and rolled them into 8" diameter shells (click image to make larger).
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| 50 g rounded dough rolled to a ca. 8" shell |
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| Here's a shot of the cast iron griddle in the oven. |
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| Topped the shells with a bit of tomato paste, thinly sliced, roasted cauliflower, ham, sprinkle of parmesan and a drizzle of oil and baked it about 12 minutes. |
In conclusion, the cast iron was awesome. I'll be getting a nice round for the Firedome. In the meantime, for these 8" personal pies, I may make them a tad thicker, but this thinness was pretty nice. And, califlower is pretty nice as a pizza topping.
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5 comments:
I never thought of cooking on our cast iron griddle in the stove. Doh! Would make a perfect secondary pizza surface (in addition to stone) when we're cooking a bunch at a time.
I have thought of cauliflower as a topping before. I love it when it gets roasted on the tips.
Cast iron inside the dome....Freaking Brilliant! That is a must try.
I think so too John. I saw a nice 15" round on Amazon for about 35. Part of the top/bottom relative rates of cooking is undoubtedly due to varied surfaces and this should remove this variable. I can't wait to get one.
Could you get the griddle way hot on the stove, throw the pizzas on there, and then place it on the broiler for 2-3 minutes?
I was just talking to my sister about a pizza stone, because I am having raw dough issues with my pizzas. But I would be interested in trying a cast iron surface first, before I shell out money for a uni-tasker. Thanks for the idea!
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