Thin crust pizza success - finally!

Tjcoley

After many, many attempts, I've finally been able to achieve success cooking a thin crust pizza on the Egg.  I've done some fantastic pan pizza, and can duplicate Lou Malnati's Chicago deep dish consistently, but all my attempts at thin crust have turned out too thick and doughy.  I've tried many different recipes for dough, but could not get a true thin crust pizza.  

I received a 14 inch Lodge CI pizza pan for Christmas.  Using @Zippylip's dough recipe, mixed up the dough last night and let it in the fridge overnight.  Got it out a few hours before cooking.  Greased the CI pan with Crisco, and spread out the dough.  It spread very easily right on the pan.  Just pressed it and worked it to the edge.  Some sauce, mozza, provolone and parm cheeses, a little oregano, and on to the Egg.

Wanted to cook it raised in the dome, but it only fits right at the gasket line, and has to be centered just right.  I used a platesetter, legs down, with the grate on top for the first 5 minutes, then removed the grate and placed the pan directly on the PS.  About four minutes later we were done.  

Crust was crispy on the bottom, light and airy, with a good chew.  Cooked evenly for the whole pie.  As a 'just in case' I also did a sausage Chicago Deep Dish.  Both pies went completely, and the family (including my son and DIL who are from NYC and know pizza) convinced me to do another thin crust for late night snacking.  Luckily I had enough dough left in the fridge, so I put the pan outside to cool, and whipped up another.  This will now be my go to pizza - much better than anything I can buy around here.  

bigguy136

Congrats and looks great! I'm 4 pizzas into learning how. I've been using Zippy's pizza dough recipe. How do you get the pizza dough to roll out nice and round? Do you have thick and thin areas in the crust?

Botch

Dayam that looks good, congrats!  

Tjcoley

bigguy136 said:

Congrats and looks great! I'm 4 pizzas into learning how. I've been using Zippy's pizza dough recipe. How do you get the pizza dough to roll out nice and round? Do you have thick and thin areas in the crust?

For this one, I just plopped the ball of dough into the middle of the greased pan and started pressing it out to the edges.  As I saw thicker areas, I'd just press another direction.  I was able to get a pretty uniform thickness.  The dough was no where near as elastic as what I've tried before. Once I got it out to the edge it pretty much stayed there, as opposed to other doughs that I'd stretch to the edge and they would pull back to where I started.  It was pretty sticky.  Only change I made to the recipe was to cut all the '20 minutes' down to 10 minutes or less.  I'm not that patient.

Duganboy

I've got the same pan and I love it for any kind of pizza.  You will enjoy it of years.