stuffed pizzas

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

Hi. Looking for help from those who make a stuffed pizza. We saw something that looked like dough on the bottom, ingredients then dough on top. If anyone makes it, I have a few questions.

  1. Do you put the same amount of ingredients in the middle?
  2. The top dough - to you put something on top of that so it doesn’t bubble up?
  3. How long do you cook it?
  4. What type of pan do you use?
  5. Do you bake the bottom first, add the stuff and top then bake again?
  6. Is it worth it?

I think that’s it for now. Thanks.

2

Use a 2" deep dark anodized pan. Make the bottom crust too big so it hangs over the edge. Toss lots of cheese and toppings inside (no sauce). Put the top crust on hanging over the edge. Run a rolling pin over to cut the two crusts and seal them together. Tear a few slits in the top. Put it in the oven for a while (15 mins or so). Pull it out and put sauce on top of the top crust and cook until done. Total bake time is usually 30-40 mins. The reason for cooking some before the sauce is two-fold. First, the crust can be uneven and the thin areas of sauce can scorch (visual only). Second, you’re giving the cheese a better chance of melting completely and the top crust getting fully cooked. The steam vents also work better without the sauce on top through the whole bake.

If your wrists don’t hurt when pulling the pizza from the oven, you didn’t put enough cheese in it :).

3

Is this OK for a conveyor oven too? Our ovens are set at about 475 and 4.55 minutes. Instead of every 5 minutes putting it back in, could I put it in then stop the conveyor for 40 minutes?

4

I’ve never tried it in a conveyor. I can’t imagine that it would work the same due to how the impingment systems work.

5

Response:

Conveyor ovens can bake stuffer pizza but it requires a different approach to baking.

Take all the internal ingredients, the sauce, meat, veggies, etc.and heat them to about done in a microwave note: NOT THE CHEESE. Then put those very hot ingredients and the cheese into the unbaked crust, then run the product through the conveyor oven. Experience will indicate time. Perhaps 10 Min. You should then have a highly saleable stuffed product without taking a half hour to bake.

Note, I do not bake pizzas I only can pass on what my clients have told me. Unfortunately I do not recall the name of the shop using the above procedure, it was working for them.Try it if you wish, if it works good for you let us know.

George Miolls

6

You can’t stop a pizza in an air impingement oven due to the high velocity air which will toast your pizza in nothing flat. Then too, as most ovens have different finger configurations across the top of the oven, you would get a different result depending upon what finger the pizza was setting under when the conveyor was stopped. In short, bad idea.
If you have a split conveyor you can set one conveyor fo rabout 2.5 to 3 minutes just to parbake the bottom filling with the top crust applied, then add the final sauce and any other toppings and put it backk in on the other conveyor which would probably be set at about 5 minutes.
We were making quite a few of these last week at our annual pizza seminar. Here is how we made them;

  1. Use 2-inch dark colored deep-dish pan. Apply shortening or margaring to the pan. Do not use oil as it will not grip the dough.
  2. Sheer/roll dough out thin and large enough to generously drape over the pan. Tuck the dough down into the pan tightly.
  3. Apply cheese (Ricotta and Mozzarella blend works well, fresh basil and crushed garlic.
  4. Sheet out another dough piece and hand stretch to make even thinner than the first piece thay you just put into the pan, drape over the pan and again tuck down into the pan to cover the filling, using your fingers, crimp the two dough pieces together firmly.
  5. Using a rolling pin over the top of the pan, crimp cut the two dough pieces and remove the scrap dough. Cut or tear a vent hole in the dough piece.
  6. Place into a (we used a deck oven) at 525F and par bake the crust until it just beging to turn a light golden brown on the edges.
  7. Remove the par-baked crust from the oven and apply sauce and any other desired toppings, then apply another, but lighter application of cheese and place back into the oven to finish baking to a lightly browned color.
  8. Allow pizzas to set-up for a couple minutes before cutting with a rocker knife.
    We can normally bake them in about 15 minutes or so so your total delivery time will be close to 30 minutes from order to serving. A good type of oven to consider if you want to make this type of pizza your “bread and butter” is a reel type oven where you can bake them at 450F and get some decent production numbers. I like to use this type of pizza on Mondays only. We would use them to help strengthen an otherwise slow day. They are a great pizza, a little labor intensive, but you might be able to get $20.00, or more, for a 12-inch.
    Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
7

Coming from the world of Sbarros and Villa pizza where we made stuffs all day long, you gotta make sure you don’t stretch the dough too thin on top. Otherwise, it will look transparent. Also, another technique would be to tuck in the edges into the bottom crust and then fold it over and crimp it. Slit the top with a knife, we made diamonds for looks but it makes it to where the top won’t bubble at all.

Another way to cut it is to take a knife and score the top, then use a pizza cutter to finish it, it won’t tear it up.