I love alfredo sauce with artichokes, spinach, feta cheese, onion and mushrooms and basil if I have it.

My recommendation is that you Google Kenji and pan pizza. You have to start the day before for the dough to prepare itself but it takes very little time and very little work and the outcome is fantastic. Good luck

Judy, that does sound good. That may be my next one. I bought some frozen artichokes at Trader Joe's the other day.

Elmer, I will do that. I was planning on using my bread machine to make the dough.

Elmer, I just watched one of his videos and I think he needs to perfect his videoing skills a lot. The content was okay but when you have motion sickness issues that isn't a good thing to watch.

No need to watch a video. Kenji is a seriously smart chef with humility and without pretention who has honed his skills in restaurants and at Cooks Illustrated. With a degree from MIT, you can be sure he takes his experimentation to perfect recipes very seriously.

Take a look at this recipe. He's super into process and results. This recipe I think is for two pizzas, nothing about it that would prevent making a half recipe. The rising time to let the dough and the yeast do their thing together should not be rushed, it's part of the process to produce the result. If you decide to try it, I hope you'll share the outcome. I can't imagine that dough from a bread machine would be comparable. .

Foolproof Pan Pizza Recipe (seriouseats.com)

is cornbread calling your name too ... and fried chicken?

I tend to use frozen bread dough. Or I go to Publix and get some fresh pizza dough. And I have a pizza pan, but for some reason I always forget I have one, so I make either a big rectangular pizza on a cookie sheet oooooooor my favorite, I use my heart shaped cake pans.

Besides th obvious appeal to me, it's a good size,not huge where we are eating pizza for a week. But not chintzy where ya gotta have a side with it. I like lots of toppings on mine.

I love my cast iron skillet. Mines pink. :)

Hmm, I cheat. I buy cheap Publix pepperoni pizza, and add sun-dried tomatoes, broken up sausage patties and fresh grated parm cheese. Ooh greasy 😁. Not gourmet, treat maybe every few months, esp cold for breakfast

Elmer, I did watch the pizza video all the way through, even though it was hard to do. I'll look at the recipe tomorrow, thanks.

Amylou, saw some pale pink pans in Kohls the other day and thought about you, lol.

How do you make your pizza?

I make the dough in my bread machine, and cook the pizza in my Breville pizza maker on a pizza stone..

I make a simple yeast crust and let it rise, split it into two, and let it rise again. We like crisp thin crust pizza [probably NY style that you can roll]. And cold pizza the next day is a bonus. SO could eat pizza every day. Me, not so much any more ... sauces can give me heartburn, so i use pepperjack cheese [yeah, i know] or havarti as the base first atop the crust, then i pile on the sweet peppers, shrooms, onions, black olives and usually a meat other than pepperoni. Then some parm and mozz atop. i love, love love my baking stones.

I tried the pizza recipe Elmer likes and found it terrific. It's definitely my go to pizza recipe now.

Kaths, you can never go wrong with a cast iron skillet. i watched Kenji early this morning and started dough . You can tell he enjoys his time in the kitchen. As for ingredients, I will use items in the refrigerator. Always have lots of veggies and types of cheese.

I ended up using my bread machine to make the dough. It was too puffy for my liking but my exchange student really liked it. Next time I'll use half the recipe. It was the bread machine recipe, which was almost identical to the one Elmer posted. Only difference is, I didn't let it rise so long as that one. It was about 2 hours in the bread machine, took it out and put it in my skillet to rise for another 2 hours. I also used cornmeal and a little salt on the bottom to help with keeping it from sticking as another U-tuber suggested. I loved the crispiness of the pizza bottom and sides. Best part of it. I also used full fat real mozzarella, which I don't hardly ever buy. I couldn't really tell the difference between it and the shredded bagged stuff.

The purple stuff on top is some basil from my garden that I put on after it baked. I cooked it on the stove top for about 7 minutes before putting it in the oven for another 15 minutes. The mushrooms are only on half of the pizza because Leo doesn't like them. Under the cheese are yellow bell peppers and pepperoni. I have no idea why I put some toppings under the cheese and some on top. There's also shredded cheddar cheese. Ragu pizza sauce. I put on a lot less than I normally would after watching some videos. I also saw a video about dehydrating your veggies in the microwave and using paper towels before putting them on the pizza, to cut down on sogginess. So, I did that too. The only soggy part was the very center.

It was puffy because you let it rise for 2 hours. When I make homemade pizza, I make my crust and top it...no rise time in the pan after it's been shaped. If you want a puffy crust then allow it to rise. I never do that though.

"Puffy" depends on time or the amount of yeast used or both. Kenji's recipe sits for 8-24 hours but it has less than a half of a package of yeast for two pizzas. The dough does not come out puffy.

I'm going to try cutting the recipe in half next time. See what happens.

I inherited two very old cast iron skillets and never used either. I will follow this thread and maybe dig one of them out and try something.

amylou, how in the world do you get an iron skillet to be pink?!!!

I love every one of my iron skillets and use them everyday for everything!!!!! They are, hands down, the single most useful things in my whole house. I dont treat them special or fret about them. I just use them and they stay well conditioned.

I just usually rinse them under hot water while they are still hot and use a bit of a metal scrubby on them if need be. If they need it, I give squirt of detergent.

I see that some will measure an iron skillet by whether or not they can cook an egg in it without some oil or butter. That never made any sense to me. That is not what an iron skillet does and it should not be expected to do so . It has many other wonderful properties that are more useful than that.

Kaths, use your skillet on a regular everyday basis and get it seasonded well. Until you get it wel lbroken in you may experience a few disappointments. Mine have almost 50 years of "seasoning".

Kenji’s recipe is amazing. The grands loved it. Use my cast iron skillets all the time. All of mine are over 60 years old and two are at least one hundred. Grandmama cooked using them on the wood fired stove. Thanks so much for giving us the info from Kenji.

I enjoy reading Serious Eats but don’t find Kenji’s recipes/methods as foolproof as I’d expect from someone that attempts a scientific approach. I made his sicilian pizza once, what a mess.

I've never used mine to make pizza! I use pizza pans.

Kath....glad you started this thread. I too purchased a cast iron 12" pan recently. I also agree about Elmers recipe recommendation being close....it's really GOOD tho! Half the recipe sounds like, from your experience, a better fit. (Elmer did say to divide it in half). I'd like to try making pizza in mine. I have a pizza pan and a pizza stone....now cast iron! Jasdip is the Queen when it comes to cooking in cast iron. I've never tried rolls. ♥ Cool! And gurl...yours are just perfection!

Nicole, yeah, I missed the part about making two pizzas from the recipe. I was following my bread machine instructions and it doesn't say it's for two. I think I'm going to dig out my buttermilk yeast bun recipe and make some in it today. We're having spaghetti tonight.

Another Kenji fan here! His pizza dough recipe is fantastic. I've made a lot of his recipes and only had a couple that I didn't care for.

"I enjoy reading Serious Eats but don’t find Kenji’s recipes/methods as foolproof"

Food, I don't think there's any such thing as a foolproof recipe. There are so many variables - ingredients, temperatures, cooking equipment performance, moisture content, and more, etc., such that absolutely consistent outcomes with the same recipe in the same place and the same "cook" are unlikely. Every time is different.

I've been an admirer of his work for good while, dating back to his years at Cooks Illustrated. I like his approach, I like his attitude, and I've long benefited from following the results of his serious and iteratively experimental recipe development because he tries to understand what's physically happening, with a focus on process as well, to get the best possible outcome. I like some more than others but I've never been really disappointed.

Everyone has different tastes and preferences. Fortunately, there's an endless source of excellent cookbooks to choose from. While I have a big cookbook of his, he's a rarity because of being one of just a few (in my opinion) internet sources with quality recipes. Ina Garten is one of the others. Most of what's out there can be pretty poor.

Good luck to all.

Another topping I like is pesto and goat cheese instead of tomato sauce, or "cuban style" with thin sliced ham and dill pickle. I always go for more vegetable than meat in my toppings - I try to keep it to just enough meat to flavor but not be greasy, and just enough veg to be a generous serving but not making the pizza wet (so I will often pre-cook the fresh veg for a few minutes to dry it out some)

Another Kenji fan here. I also like the King Arthur 2020 recipe of the year, pizza made in a cast iron pan. I always make my dough the night before. I feel like I get better flavor and performance.

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/crispy-cheesy-pan-pizza-recipe

I make Detroit style pizza. Back east we used to call it a Sicilian pie.

The King Arthur recipe looks good, and is also similar to Kenji's approach. Thanks.

It uses 240 grams of flour instead of Kenji's 400 grams so it's a smaller batch. I forget what the name of the process is but the time the very small amount of yeast spends with the flour (up to 24 hours) is what produces the flavor and texture.

Ah, just remembered the term. It's called the autolyze method.

Most of what I know about making pizzas I learned from the Pizza Making Forum. The people there are very helpful, and I have gotten quick responses to my questions. A lot of the members have their own pizza restaurants or have previously owned them.

When in Cathedral City, I use our Ooni oven to make pizza,

and it bakes in 90 seconds. I've made several of my own Youtube videos showing how to make pizza.

I have also learned from Vito Lacopelli, and he makes better videos than Kenji that are more professional. I also prefer Vito's recipes, and I've made both.

In L.A. I sometimes use a 14" diameter cast iron Camp Chef pizza pan:

It's important to heat the pan before adding the pizza dough, and this is a bit tricky, but I add the toppings after I have put the dough onto the hot pan, and this has to be done quickly. More often I just put the dough on an aluminum pizza peel, and I can make a 16" diameter pizza this way, baking it on my pizza stone. My oven here only gets to 550°, but the Ooni oven will get to over 950°, which is why it bakes so quickly. If I want to make a Neapolitan style pizza here in L.A., I bake it in our Big Green Egg, which has its own pizza stone. The BGE will get above 1100°, but I try to keep it down to 930° for pizza. I don't do this unless I am having a pizza party with quite a few people, and that has not happened in quite a while.

I’ve been using a cast iron skillet all my life. I have 4 of varying sizes, plus a flat griddle i can use for pizza, plus a dutch oven. I have some others i’m not thinking about right now because I took a couple to the lake that were my Mom’s. I never start anything in them cold and usually rub a little vegetable oil on them first.

We stopped at the Lodge factory store last week on our way home from North Carolina. If any of you are ever in the area, its fun to browse and pick up some odds and ends. I may go back soon and pick up a lid specifically for my 12” skillet.

“Food, I don't think there's any such thing as a foolproof recipe.”

🤣🤣🤣

(just thought that was funny, not trying to make an issue of it!)

I’m going to try this one since several people seem to like it. Will report back tomorrow.

My go-to recipe for an easily managable thin crust is Roberta’s pizza dough, found in NYT.

Elizabeth - Do you follow a specific recipe for that Sicilian? Looks perfect!

Sure, food. Smoke-free candles, non-skid tile, never need sharpening knives, 12 month car wax, white chocolate. non-streaking wiper blades. Don't believe everything you read. While some of the preceding try to be serious even though obviously misleading, I wouldn't expect something on Serious Eats to be more than fun hyperbole. But you can be sure all of the recipes on that site are the very best to be found in the English language.

I am getting ready to make some buttermilk yeast buns in the skillet. We're having spaghetti tonight. I was hoping Leo would want another pizza so I could experiment again. Too bad it's 82 degrees in here. My heat pump isn't working again. Just had it serviced about a week ago.

If you all haven't, you should watch Lars' youtube pizza videos. I got a chuckle out of the burned pizza video...ooopsie....haha! Interesting watching how to shape a pizza, I just thought it was me and it was taking a long time, but apparently, it just takes a long time to shape a pizza. Thanks for the videos, Lars!

**I have a question for Lars, how much does your pizza dough weight to make that size of a pizza? Is that a pound of dough? I buy these one pound dough balls and it just seems too thin when I make it into a 14 inch pizza.