The Elements of Pizza

I own multiple pizza cookbooks. This one is by far my favorite, and then one I keep going back to for reference. I get a lot more out of other pizza cookbooks having read this book cover-to-cover and learning everything I possibly can about traditional methods and ingredients. This is the pizza book that makes other pizza books more valuable. Baking has always appealed to me, since I was a little kid. I think part of it how much it tickles that part of my brain that's very systematic and orderly, and every time you bake it's like a fun science experiment too. It also has a nostalgic quality for me as my mom was always baking different things, and I got to help her in the kitchen growing up. All too often, you look up a recipe online, or in a regular cookbook, and it's just a series of steps, often vague, and no real explanation of how to do them, or why you should do them. The authors either assume you have certain knowledge already, or lack that knowledge themselves. For many kinds of food, that's okay, and you can get good results just muddling through, but with baking there's chemistry and biology at work that requires very careful attention and specialized knowledge to achieve the best results. Sometimes you wish you could experiment, but you're unsure what parts of the recipe you can play with and how to play with them to get different results. This is a book for those who don't just want to make a decent pizza at home, but want to understand the ins-and-outs of pizza dough, and all the different things you can adjust to achieve the results you want. This book contains some recipes, some very good recipes, but it's not a cookbook. It's really a textbook, written in evocative prose, with tantalizing full-page photos of ingredients, dough, toppings, and of course finished pizzas. If you read the book cover-to-cover, and you should, you won't even encounter a recipe until page 103. The first five chapters are a history lesson, stories about pizzaiolos (those who make pizzas in Italy) and discussions on pizza styles, ingredients, equipment, and methods. Throughout is vast amounts of wisdom, and very important details on what makes a great pizza dough. If you're the kind of person who wants the very best results from your pizza-making, and discussion of protein percentages in your flour or the brix of the tomatoes you use doesn't scare you off, this book is a fount of invaluable knowledge. This is a recipe book for those who WANT to worry about the humidity of their kitchen, and want to precisely measure time and temperature as ingredients in their dough-making. All of this information is presented in a clear, well-organized way, that's beginner-friendly. Armed with all of this knowledge, the recipes in the latter half of the book are really just examples. You are encouraged to use the techniques you've learned in the first half to experiment and decide what sort of pizza you want to make. The first dough recipe, Saturday Pizza Dough, is an excellent baseline, but depending on what style you like you might try any of the other dough recipes, or use them as starting points to develop your own. After the dough and sauce recipes come specific pizza recipes which may or may not suggest specific doughs. If you're like me, you'll find yourself eager to hunt down the very best ingredients you can find, and happily making many pizzas to perfect your skills. Bottom line, will you make great pizza after reading this book? Heck yeah you will! The best pizza I've ever had comes out of my own oven now. Perfect crust, perfect sauce, and the toppings just how I want them. It's a bit of work, making food this good, but it's so worth it and the experience from start to finish is a lot of fun. It's very satisfying to chew a pizza crust and admire its qualities, knowing exactly what you did to make it so good. My first few pizzas after I started making them the traditional Italian way were a little stressful, some mistakes were made, but even the worst pizza I made using this book as my guide were still a lot better than you get from most restaurants.

The first thing that stands out about this book is the helpful way in which the sections have been arranged. There is an absolutely gorgeous introduction chapter called appropriately The Soul of Pizza, and for the first time when reading a cookbook I found myself immersed in a wonderful story of pizza and the regions of Italy that take pizza to levels of yummy perfection. It is a carefully researched and beautifully written story and I actually read it all the way through (something I never do with cookbooks). I guess that is because The Elements of Pizza is actually much more than a cookbook. It embraces all things pizza, not least of all pizza's Italian origins and the wonderful culture it arose from. Ken Forkish does an amazing job of capturing the beauty of the Italian country (amazing amazing photography wow), and the skill and dedication of pizza artisans there who have been perfecting their skill for generations with loving dedication. His descriptions of the consistency of crusts and the various regional tastes is nothing short of miraculous. I mean I could really imagine the taste and texture of the pizza. It is a mouth-watering and very inspiring journey into the world of pizza. Instead of finding a bunch of pizza recipes attached to a couple dough recipes, as in most recipe books, I discovered in this book a whole chapter talking about nothing but dough. And by that I mean to say there are 12 different pizza dough recipes plus one gluten-free pizza dough recipe. They are divided into helpful categories based on time it takes to make the doughs, starting with 5 fairly fast doughs, followed by refrigerated doughs that take 24, 48 or 72 hours respectively, followed by a couple naturally-leavened doughs, and then some more specialty doughs. In other words, this chapter alone has taught me all I need to know about every pizza dough I could ever want to make. Wow. I am absolutely delighted. Big smile on my face. It takes all the confusion and uncertainty out of the process and helps one master the whole world of pizza dough in short order. I am sure it will take lots of practice to actually master the making of the doughs, but at least here there is a clear and solid foundation to build on. I just love it! I also love the subsequent chapter that is divided into sections, to give pizza recipes specific to each region. It starts with recipes that are true to Italian and/or Italian-style pizza. Followed by New York style recipes, and then a section of Ken's own artisan creations, and then specialty recipes, some Trifecta flatbreads, and then vegetable and other recipes. This amazing and comprehensive chapter starts with a bunch of recipes for pizza sauce alone, including 2 ways of making basic tomato sauce, FWSY sauce (Flour Water Salt Yeast), Vodka sauce, and New York pizza sauce. There is a whole chapter dedicated to talking about details for making Great Pizza Crust... an extremely helpful resource... with beautiful photos. I feel like it is an actual pizza-making class, at a height I could only previously dream of attaining. Ken Forkish makes it seem so simple and elementary. It is very well written and an invaluable resource. Again, a beautifully strong foundation with which to begin a pizza making journey... practice will make perfect, I trust. Honestly, even my most scatterbrained attempts at making pizza have been delicious and yummy. One can hardly go wrong with pizza. It is a food of the gods.. hehe... but this book is something else. It will take your pizza skills to new levels and enable great control over the crust consistency and texture and taste. This is something I had not mastered before. And this book gives such a variety of different styles and types of dough that I will never again be stuck making just the one kind of pizza, as I have been. The taste and consistency of the dough is shown to be the real king in pizza, more so than the toppings themselves. The toppings are wonderful in this book and beautifully varied. But the dough is really what I am excited to work with here. And I can't wait to compare side by side the different tastes of Italian vs New York style pizza, both of which I have always loved. In conclusion, this book is really not to be missed by any pizza lover. It is comprehensive, beautifully presented, and the photography is plentiful and stunning. it will teach and inspire anyone, I think, to delve into the exciting world of pizza making. And it gives a passionate and loving history of the art, with a detailed study of pizza making in Italy. Ken Forkish actually went there and worked and talked with some of the greatest pizza artisans in Italy. And it's all in this book, with photos of the pizzaiolos (pizza makers) that he talked to, and photos of their establishments. And some really inspired shots of Naples too. This is the most passionate, authentic, helpful, delicious book on pizza I have ever seen! PS: FYI ...My pizza making, personally, is in a 30" Viking gas oven, and more recently in a Uuni 2 wood-fired (900F) pizza oven (amazing birthday present thank you dear hubby). The Uuni 2 bakes pizza super fast so the times of baking have to be adjusted accordingly... Great for the thinner crust pizzas

After taking a pizza making class in Naples and upgrading my Cuisinart pizza oven to an Ooni, I have been devouring this book. It covers just about everything you might want to know about pizzas — from different styles to doughs to sauces. Most importantly, it covers techniques for achieving the best pie possible. The dough recipes I’ve tried have given me the crusts I want. I love that the same dough can be used for Neapolitan pizza, with its puffy edges, and Roman pizza, with its super-thin, cracker-like crust. It’s all in how you shape it. This book gives hints on how to more easily move an uncooked pizza from peel to oven (hint: don’t use a solid metal one and don’t hesitate when jerking it away.). In addition to describing how to make Italian pies, the book also delves into American versions, such as New York style and deep-dish. For me, the most valuable portion of the book has been the first chunk of pages devoted to technique and types. But the recipes are also great. I love that I can try different sauces and doughs to get to the one I like. For those who aren’t sure what to place on top, the book supplies those recipes, too. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to get serious about pizza making. Don’t just use it for the recipes — read it and learn first.

Confession: I'm a pizza snob. My first job at 14 was in a pizzeria where I threw the dough in front of a window people waking by could look in. I'm now in my 60s and had given up trying to make "real" pizza at home. Thank goodness Ken Forkish didn't give up. Finally we have the secrets to making true artisan pizza at home. I particularly like that it isn't just Neapolitan, but a number of different doughs and styles that work for different occasions. For example, don't make Neapolitan pizzas for 12 guests if you want to enjoy their company! Instead you can do amazing sheet pan pizzas for a crowd using Roman al taglio or the long-fermented bar pizza doughs. (Never in my wildest dreams did I think you could make an artisan pizza on sheet pans!) Time is flavor in pizza dough, so while there are shorter fermentation recipes for when you need them, the stars of this book are the longer fermentation doughs. The 48-72 hour biga dough is my favorite. The shortest one with that artisan level of flavor is the overnight naturally leavened dough (if you have a mother starter established). The other game changer is how Forkish took best in class pizzeria dough recipes, designed for 900 degree F commercial ovens, and adapted them for home ovens that can "only" reach 550 degrees F. Before this book I wanted to get one of those special 900 degree home pizza ovens like an Ooni, but now I have zero need for one. Thanks for saving me the trouble and expense of that! While the dough is the key, the book has a number of wonderful recipes for what you put on it. But that's a little like giving a jazz musician sheet music; it's a great starting point. But let me call out in particular two of the San Marzano tomato-based sauces (FWSY & New York). So easy and so much better than anything in a jar, including Rao's. We use them as our basic pasta sauces now, too. To the people complaining about the recipes not being for the home pizza ovens they bought, if you read the book you would know that you just need to reduce hydration to 65%. Pretty darn simple. If you don't know what dough hydration is, it's easily found online.

I've been baking artisan bread for something like fifteen years. As Ken Forkish notes in the title of his previous book, bread is composed of just a few ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. Yet making great bread requires some time and experience to master. Although there are only a few ingredients, great bread can be surprisingly difficult at first. Trying to learn to make great pizza reminds me of the problems of learning to make great bread. Like bread, pizza seems pretty simple. There's the crust, some tomato sauce, cheese (usually mozzarella) and perhaps a few toppings like mushrooms and sausage. How difficult can it be to make great pizza? Especially if you already know how to make great bread. I have a couple of books on making pizza, most notably Peter Reinhart's book American Pie . I read some very favorable reviews of The Elements of Pizza, so I bought this book too. I like the fact that like Peter Reinhart, Ken Forkish come to pizza making as a bread baker. As cook books, both Reinhart and Forkish could have cut the length of their books in half. In both cases the first half of the books is an account of the author's path toward pizza mastery. They discuss the pizza masters they learned from and the regions they visited to learn about regional pizza style. At least for me, making great pizza is difficult. I'm still trying to gain pizza mastery. My pizza skills are certainly not at the same level as my bread making skills. The Elements of Pizza is a good book, but it did not provide the answers that this student seeks. My number one problem is shaping the dough and getting it onto and off of the pizza stone. Inspired by The Elements of Pizza I ordered Antimo Caputo 00 Pizzeria Flour . I used long rise dough, made with a "bigga" starter following the recipe in the book. This dough was easier to shape than other doughs I've tried with all purpose flour or bread flour. But my shaped pizza dough is still not the round dough that professionals make. Once the dough is shaped I have a hard time getting it onto the hot pizza stones. I've had some disasters trying to move the pizza onto the stone, where the pizza stuck and crumpled onto the stone, resulting in burning cheese that triggered the smoke detector. I've tried a pizza pan (like this one: AirBake Nonstick Pizza Pan, 15.75 in ). This has the advantage of making sure that I can get the pizza into and out of the oven intact. But the dough doesn't cook as well as it does in direct contact with the pizza stone. I've tried using a pizza peel ( New Star Foodservice 50295 24-Inch Wooden Pizza Peel with 14-Inch by 16-Inch Blade ) to remove a partially cooked pizza from the pan so I can put it on the stone. But if the dough is too soft (perhaps because I used a bit too much sauce), this can fail. The Elements of Pizza is a good book, but it didn't provide all of the answers I am looking for. My search for pizza mastery continues. Later: I have an electrically heated oven and it will not go over 500 F. So I decided to try baking the pizza at 450, which allows me to let the formed dough rise on a piece of baking "parchment" paper. When the dough has risen I put the tomato sauce and toppings on and I can easily slide it in and out of the oven. This seems to be working well.

The Elements of Pizza is formatted fairly similarly to the author's previous masterpiece: Flour Water Salt Yeast. There is a very lengthy introduction covering the soul of pizza (at least as it relates to the Naples, Rome, and New York regions as well as American pan/bar pizza and flat breads). If you're hoping for a book that covers Sicilian pizza or Chicago-style pizza or St. Louis-style pizza, then this is not the book for you (or at least, you'll need another one). Ken focuses on a few pizza styles and dives into what makes them so great and how to recreate them in your home kitchen. Ken's advice spans 40 pages of text and accompanying photos, wherein he explains the key ingredients for making great pizza, the necessary equipment, and the right methods for working with pizza dough. His explanation of the two techniques for loading pizza onto the stone from the peel is both humorous and brilliant - here's hoping it helps me not botch the first pizza of the night like I normally do. As far as the actual recipes go, there's a fair amount of diversity in both dough recipes and topping suggestions. A couple of the recipes are almost identical to their sibling recipe from Flour Water Salt Yeast (at least the Saturday and Overnight doughs), but with at least one difference. Ken writes that he does not follow the autolyse process he promoted in FWSY given the traditions of pizza-making. He's modified his sauce recipes slightly too and none of the various topping recipes except the Margherita overlap. Also - there is one gluten-free dough recipe, with a great discussion on how the flour brand/mix can affect the final dough. Ken's instructions on how to assemble and bake a variety of pizzas and flatbreads are clear and encouraging. You might be a little anxious about turning your oven up so high (550 F) - his books are the first I've read calling for that high a temperature. However, his method works and yields sublime pizzas. Definitely a must read for anyone who wants to learn more about the art of pizza making and dough chemistry. Even if all you're looking for is the "I slept in but I still want pizza" recipe plus the right baking method, this cookbook is worth every penny.

This is an amazing book and it works for pizza ovens or regular ovens

I love the way this cookbook is laid out. It was great information for beginning and intermediate home Pizza chefs. Easy to use full of information and good recipes.

delivery was faster than expected but it came a bit bent (not a big deal). informative content, loads of useful info about making pizza. a very good read

Thank you to Ken, I went from not hadn't made a single pizza ever in my life to make these delicious pizza with authentic Italian pizza flavour at home. This is mind blowing!. I'd recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn about the history of pizza and details on how to make them. I might be buying the book that specialises in bread.

Excelente leitura, de fácil compreensão, didático. Recomendo para quem gosta de fazer sua própria pizza. Um passar para alcançar um mastery em pizza.

This book contains many interesting pizza recipes and also tips etc, on how to make high quality pizza at home. It is a great volume to have on one's shelf if you are interested in making quality pizza at home, from scratch.

J'ai passé des années à essayer de faire des pizzas dignes de ce nom. Sans succès. Avec ce livre j'y parviens. Tout est parfaitement expliqué pour faire des vraies pizzas napolitaines qui vont epoustoufler vos amis. je ne commande plus aucune pizza, tout est fait à la maison car c'est meilleur, point. Si vous voulez être sérieux avec les pizzas, achetez ce livre. À noter qu'il est spécialisé pour les fours de cuisine (70% hydratation) . Mais vous pouvez très bien adapter pour les fours à bois (55 a 60%) avec une calculatrice, je l'ai fait plusieurs fois sans problème pour cuisiner dans le four à pizzas de mon voisin !