They never come out anywhere near as good as a freshly made pizza at a pizzeria when I follow the box directions. I imagine some of that is a result of freezing the pizza, but I think the directions might be the bigger factor. So my plan is to try emulating the conditions of a proper pizza oven to the best of my ability by:
- Thawing the pizza out before cooking
- Preheating the oven to its hottest setting (500f) with a metal baking sheet inside it
- Putting the pizza directly onto the hot sheet and closely monitoring until it looks done
This is still a very far cry from a pizza stone and an actual pizza oven, but I’m hoping it’ll at least be somewhat closer to the real thing. Am I going in the right direction with this / do you have any better ideas?
In my experience those pizzas are designed to be cooked from frozen on a bare rack. The dough is almost fully cooked already, so thawing probably won’t make the dough less dense. Cooking it on a sheet will probably make the bottom less crispy.
A lot of stores sell fresh premade pizza dough, but even a frozen dough ball makes much better pizza. If you really are pressed for time you can buy premade sauce, preshredded pizza cheese mix. Throw it together on a piece of parchment and cook that on your heavy baking sheet.
The dough is almost fully cooked already
Shit, I never noticed that before because the dough is still white and it’s hard to determine the texture while frozen. That’s probably the killer now that you mention it. I already have the pizza, so I’m still going to try it this way, but next time I’ll keep on eye out for the frozen, uncooked dough.
EDIT: After thawing it out, it looks like my pizza actually did have raw dough. It had risen a bit before I even put it into the oven. It’s cooking now, will update later.
there’s nothing stopping you from just adding more ingredients and spices on top, but i think the bread will never rise properly since it has been frozen
pet peeve
THERE’S NO NEED TO ADD PRE- TO THE WORD PREPARED, IT ALREADY CONTAINS ONE PRE- WHICH WORKS PERFECTLY FINE Yeah it’s not really a flavor thing. My problem is the texture of the bread, there’s always something off about it. But I do know that you can make perfectly fine bread with pre-prepared frozen dough, I’ve done it before. I’ve even had it rise substantially after thawing. That’s what lead me to think the problem is with the box directions.
as another person commented, extra toppings, can make a huge difference. fresher / better cheese and vegetables really transform it.
Your best bet is to bake it until the crust is set, then pop it under the broiler to get the cheese and toppings properly toasty and delicious
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Do you have a pizza steel?
I’m not sure if it’s specifically a pizza steel, but I do have a steel pan I was planning to use for this.
You would know if you had a pizza steel.
