So you've brought home some uncooked thin-crust pizza dough-now what??

THIN-CRUST PIZZA BAKING INSTRUCTIONS

We make all of our pizza dough in the Solar Gardens At Avalon kitchen with just 4 ingredients---wheat flour, yeast and a dash of salt and a tad of extra virgin olive oil.

You will be baking your pizza on a pizza stone or a baking sheet placed on the middle rack of your oven. A pizza stone is ideal for our pizza shells. If you do have a pizza stone, you should put it in the oven while the oven is preheating so that the stone becomes hot before you place the dressed pizza on it. If you don't have a pizza stone, consider buying one. You can usually find them really cheap now in dollar stores. No worries if you don't have a stone, a regular cookie sheet works pretty good too.

Preheat your oven to almost as high as it will go. 500 F is great, and you could even go a bit higher to 550 F if your oven goes that high. Even lower temperatures will work but the baking time will be increased.

You can bake our dough directly from frozen or thawed. If you are using a thick pizza sauce, it is best to spread it on while the pizza shell is still frozen.

We have placed the pizza shell on parchment paper for your convenience. You will keep the pizza shell on the parchment paper while you dress the pizza and for the first few minutes that it is baking in the oven.

Dress your pizza in this order: Spread the sauce on first. Then sprinkle on the cheese. And finally, add any toppings. Remember that this is a thin crust pizza shell that bakes quickly, so try not to stack your pizza too thick with toppings or it will not cook thoroughly. Try to place your toppings so they are evenly spread on the shell. You don't want to pile all of your topping in the centre, as this will prevent the pizza (and shell) from cooking evenly (ie the centre may be raw). Definitely keep your toppings well under 1/2" thick. We've found about 1/4" thickness is ideal to insure proper cooking of the toppings and shell.

The parchment makes transfer of the now-dressed pizza onto your preheated pizza stone (or cookie sheet) easy. Put the parchment and pizza directly onto the stone.

You will allow the pizza to cook on this parchment paper for the first few minutes that the pizza bakes. But as the pizza cooks and the crust begins to bake, the dough will loosen from the parchment. At this point, you will be able to pull and slide the parchment out from under the pizza so that the pizza bottom will now be cooking directly against the stone. (If the parchment paper does not pull out with ease after a few minutes of baking, leave it to bake a little longer and try again.) You may find that the parchment becomes a bit brown/black or possibly breaks apart more easily in this hot oven. (The parchment here will not remain as white as when you bake cookies in a lower temp oven.) Be careful not to burn yourself against the hot stone or rack when you slide the parchment out. Consider using tongs, gloves and/or a spatula as needed to ease the parchment out to continue baking.

Cooking time will vary based on your oven temperature, the thickness of your toppings and whether the pizza stone is sufficiently heated through before baking begins. In our wood-fired oven (which is 700F) the pizzas cook in 3-4 minutes. Your home oven will be cooler, so expect a longer cooking time (perhaps 8-10 minutes). But watch your pizza closely. It may take less time than that.


ALLERGEN ALERT: Please note that our dough is made in the Avalon kitchen which contains tree nuts, peanuts and sesame seeds. We cannot guarantee that cross-contamination has not occurred in our busy kitchen.

If you have any questions, you can text us at 306-280-2761 or email solargardenclasses@gmail.com. We are always interested in what people are making in terms of pizzas, if you’d like to send us a pic of your creations, we would love to see them.

Be creative and happy pizza baking!