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Want to make better pizza at home? Austin blogger offering classes
Christian Bowers has spent years perfecting his pizza dough recipe.
The Austin Food Journal blogger, who also works in photography, marketing and web design, took a scientific approach in developing a three-day, cold fermentation dough that is the basis of his infamous pies, which he serves almost every week at pizza parties at his house.
After enough queries from friends and foodies, Bowers is now offering a pizza-making class so you can learn some of his tricks and techniques for making a top-quality pizza — and by top-quality, I mean as good or better than just about any pizza you can buy in a 500 mile radius of Austin — in your home oven without buying any special equipment. (Except maybe a pizza screen, but we’ll get to that.)
The dough is much sticker than what I’ve been used to making (“If it ain’t sticky, you’re not doing something right,” he said at a class earlier this month), but the resulting crust has a far better taste and texture than I knew was even possible from a standard kitchen oven.
The key is making the dough a few days ahead so the gluten has time to properly develop, forming the pie by hand instead of with a rolling pin, preheating the oven to as hot as it will go (Christian’s goes to 550 degrees; mine tops out at 500) and baking it on a pizza screen, which you can buy for a few bucks at a kitchen supply store.
Bowers has learned all kinds of good lessons, from the best kind of flour to use to how to pick the best toppings (forget the pre-shredded mozzarella), and the class is a good opportunity to find out his technique without going through all the trial and error yourself. He offers them about once a month at his house, and the next class ($75, which includes slices of freshly baked pizza and dough to take home) is from 1 to 4 p.m. on July 10.
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By Laci Pate
June 22, 2011 5:12 AM | Link to this
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