10 Tips for Making a Better Pizza, From a Roberta’s Pizza-Tossing Pro

Photo of Roberta’s pizza courtesy of the blog Dips Dines.

By Anne Miller

Pizza seems so simple – flour, water, yeast, a few toppings, toss in the oven.

So why do we get it so wrong? A charred crust, a floppy slice, a too-thick chew, a too-wet cheese — we all have our list of homemade pizza faux pas.

Peter Litschi has your answers — or, at least, a few of them. The self-described “Head of the Pizza Secret Police” tosses pies for Roberta’s, Brooklyn’s hipster foodie haven that draws people with names like Clinton and Dunham, along with the bearded folk who live nearby.

MORE: The 33 Best Pizza Shops in America

Litschi regularly teaches a pizza-making class at the nearby Brooklyn Kitchen, showing amateurs the tricks of his trade. Yahoo Food recently sat in on a class — a hard job, but someone’s got to do it. For the sake of journalism, and a good slice.

Here are 10 takeaways from Litschi for making perfect pizza at home:

1. You need a pizza peel and a pizza stone. Seriously. That old pizza tray you picked up on a discount rack won’t cut it. Good crust needs the deep, even heat of a stone, and you can’t easily slide pies in and out without the peel. These things don’t have to cost a lot, they just need to exist.

MORE: How to Make Crazy Quick Pizza Pockets

2. Put away the measuring cups. Weigh your ingredients on a baking scale, or anything that goes down to the gram. As Litschi notes, volume measurements like cups include air, which makes them less accurate.

3. Don’t sprinkle flour while you are mixing and kneading. If the dough gets sticky while you knead, dip your hands in flour, then knead or mix. This adds flour slowly, without over-flouring the dough.

4. When it’s time to make the actual pizza, use your fingertips to poke a small circle around the dough — that’s your crust. Then, gently poke the middle. This will get rid of bubbles while slowly stretching out the dough before you toss it.

MORE: How to Make Perfect Homemade Pizza

5. Toss like this:

6. Don’t over-sauce. A scant 2 to 3 ounces should do it.

7. Don’t over-cheese. You probably need less than you think.

8. Do use fancy cheese. A little bit of fancy mozzarella may cost as much as a full bag of shredded stuff, but an extra $2 or $3 is so worth it.

9. Roast veggie toppings like mushrooms or squash. Mushrooms, for example, hold a lot of water. Toss ‘em raw on the pizza, and you’ll have a soggy pie. Roasting doesn’t have to add to your prep time — you can slip a pan in the oven while prepping your last steps of dough.

10. Toppings that cook fastest should go on the bottom. Say you want a kale parmesan burrata pie (this is Brooklyn, after all). Sprinkle some of the parmesan over the kale, so the kale doesn’t burn.

Roberta’s Basic Pizza Dough:

(edited slightly to include some of Litschi’s comments)

Makes two 12” pizzas

306 grams of flour: half Caputo 00 flour, half King Arthur Bread Flour
202 grams lukewarm water
4 grams baker’s yeast or 2 grams active dry yeast
9 grams ground sea salt (ground Kosher salt would work too)
4 grams olive oil

Mix salt and flour in one bowl, yeast, oil and water in another.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix until combined. The dough should pull all the flour off the walls of the bowl, but don’t over-knead. You want it just combined into a dough. Let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes, then knead another 3 to 6 minutes. If the dough starts feeling tight, you may verge on over-kneading.

Separate dough into two balls, cover with plastic wrap, and pop in fridge for 24 to 48 hours.

Litschi’s Super-Easy Tomato Sauce:

One can of whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes, drained
Olive oil to taste
Salt to taste

Toss the tomatoes with some olive oil and salt in a blender, or a bowl and blend with a hand-held blender. Add more oil or salt to taste. If the sauce starts turning a little orange, that’s just the olive oil coloring. Editorial note: In class, Litschi made a vat of this for more than a dozen students, but one small can of tomatoes from the grocer should do for two pies at home.

Hungry for more pizza? So is Yahoo Food:

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