ISO Pizza Crust baking help

[maria]

Hello guys, everytime i try to bake a pizza in my house, mking my own pizza crust at home, the base of the crust gets burnt and very crisp, hard, it will not be as we get in the shops, any ideas as how to make my pizza when i bake it in my house more softer and good?!

[Renee Attili]

Have you invested in a "Pizza Stone"? That would solve your burning crust problem.

[Barb L]

Or use a pizza pan, raise your oven rack up a bit.

[DramaQueen]

I love making my own pizza and I like the thin, crisp crust. I always use a pizza stone on the bottom of my oven, preheated to 450 degrees and bake my pizzas at that temperature for about 10 to 12 minutes per pizza. Perfect, delicious pizza every time and the crust is a beautiful, golden brown. If you don't want it crisp just make the dough thicker or don't spread it out as much.

[Green Lady]

Find yourself a Pampered Chef consultant, they sell nice stones w/o lead for a reasonable price.

[carolelaine]

I use a Pizza stone and a rack about 1/2 up the oven. Maybe you need to try setting the temp on the oven about 25 degrees lower, you could have an oven that runs hot.

[justplainbill]

Using a preheated pizza stone helps in the sense that it can make the bottom crust less soggy. As you can see from previous responses (e.g. place rack higher in the oven vs. place stone in the bottom of the oven) there is some lack of unanimity in what works best. Let me add to the confusion by suggesting that you add some (or some more oil) to your dough. Using whole milk in place of perhaps 1/3 of the water also seems to help; it seems to make the crust chewier. Having watched several pizza parlors bake pizza it seems they will bake them for upwards of 20 minutes. For me to keep a pie in the oven for that length of time to have the toppings adequately cooked without drying out the crust I can’t bake at over 400F.

[Caine]

The first question that needs to be answered is "At what temperature are you baking the pizza?" The second question would be "how long are you baking the pizza at this temperature?"

Once these two questions are answered, everyone can stop guessing and make informed suggestions.

[DramaQueen]

I have 3 very good pizza recipe books including Wolfgang Puck's and they state the same thing my pizza stone booklet says, : The stone should be placed at the very lowest point in your oven and the pizza baked there too. When pizza is baked in a pizzaria it is also placed at the bottom of the oven. This keeps the crust from getting soggy and makes the crisp crust everyone seems to like.
As for getting the pizza stone from Pampered Chef, I bought mine at Target. It came with a pizza peel and wheel cutter for $19.95, far cheaper and with more equipment than P.C.

[kelly79]

Middle of the oven is key -
Is your pizza pan made of a dark metal? I don't use a stone, but bake it in the middle of the oven using a stainless jelly roll style pan (if I am making a "party size" pizza and always have a nice brown - just crisp on the bottom and soft in the middle crust.